


We Grew Under a Bad Sun

by torncorpse



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, F/M, Family Dynamics, Fix-It, Gen, Platonic Relationship, Spoilers, Violence, dad!Phil, young!Clint, young!Natasha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:31:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torncorpse/pseuds/torncorpse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson always believed he'd be an 'ordinary' agent. He had no idea how wrong he was, even after meeting Clint Barton and Natasha Romanova.</p><p>He'd never believed he'd be Agent, Handler and 'dad' to two of the deadliest people on SHIELD payroll. Least of all before they hit puberty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Phil Coulson; saved by a six-year-old

**Author's Note:**

> Answer to prompt from avengerskink on LJ;
> 
> [prompt here](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5102.html?thread=5322734).

From the word 'go' the mission had been a failure. Agent's Harrod and Menzies were suited for it, yes, but in practice the ability to complete the mission was not always on par with the theory. SHIELD Agents were lost every day, teams were killed, the missions were declared failures and the world moved on. Coulson had never believed he'd live a long life, not with his chosen profession; Army Rangers leading straight into SHIELD, it was just a matter of time.

"What're you doing here?" His team had been killed; he was in the bowels of a HYDRA operation base with one pistol and a grenade. Startling at the noise was acceptable.

"Who's...?” The light was minimal, so Phil gave himself a slight break on not noticing his company before it spoke; slightly high-pitched, words mumbled rather than annunciated properly, careful curiosity expressed in the lilt of the tone. A green light flashed off rhythm with a blue one overhead, on the green flash there was nothing in front of Phil, by the blue one, it was there.

A small form, maybe three feet tall, slight build with hunch shoulders and a tilted head.

"You probably shouldn't stay." A child, it was a--

"Where..."

"You could follow me, if you want," there was a shrug of shoulders, as the child -boy- stepped forward and Phil got a better look at him. Sandy blond hair was mussed and tussled, obviously not well kept, his skin was pale under the unnatural glow from the overhead lights and his eyes were somewhat sunken; underfed, no sunlight, uncared for. Phil felt something twist in his gut. What was a child doing on a HYDRA base? "C'mon, your friends are already dead, we should go."

The boy didn't wait for an answer, just scurrying up the ladders and crates littered around the basement of the base, more agile than Phil could remember seeing most trained agents. Noises from above spurned Phil into action, holstering his pistol to follow the boy, much less graceful in his own movements. He reached a platform, overlooking the surrounding area; a vantage point that anyone would want in a fire fight, pausing to look around, Phil was moderately impressed with the scene in front of him. He knew then, he could see the entire layout of the basement storage area, but there was little scope from the ground for anyone to see him.

"Hey, c'mon, you're going slow." The boy's head disappeared into a ventilation shaft, and Phil blinked owlishly at it before stepping forward. It would be out of nature for HYDRA to use a child to lure agents through their base; they'd sooner just shoot on sight. With that in mind, and a million questions circling through his thoughts, Phil once again pulled himself to follow the boy.

Time became somewhat immeasurable, or just untraceable, as Phil followed the child through the ventilation system with some ease, not talking but hoping that the boy knew where he was going. It felt strange to do so, but Phil had little else to work with; his comm line unsecure and blocked, his back-up gone, the extraction missed. He was looking at a three hour delay before the back-up extraction was executed on the possibility of survivors. And even then he only had a ten minute window.

The blast of cool air was a shock, enough to startle a gasp from Phil as they stopped in a cross section of the ventilation. In the dim light here, it was easier to see the boy, sharp eyes trained on Phil.

"Who're you?"

"SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, what's your name?" The boy hesitated, giving Phil a glance over, eyes lingering on where he'd holstered his gun. There was a startling level of intensity to the boys' stare, something that unnerved Phil just a little.

"John." Phil nodded, although he heard the lie, he didn't comment on it.

"Okay John, why're you here? This isn't a place for children." The smirk was much more unnerving than the stare.

"It's not a place for SHIELD either." Without another word, John slipped down the shaft, feet kicking out a metal guard on the shaft as he fell onto the ground below. There were yells and screams, gun fire echoing in the room below, the commotion playing up loudly as Phil swore and tried to maneuver himself down the shaft without falling. It took longer than he would've liked, and he was fully prepared to drop into a gunfight and see a small, dead child that fell -or had thrown himself- to his death.

Instead, Phil's feet landed with a muted thump, the impact rocking a sting up through his feet as he crouched and then came to a stand, gun drawn. There was no need for the gun though, as numerous bodies littered what had to be the lobby of the base, blood spilled around the floor and small, child shaped foot prints led across the room. Phil stared at the boy, so small and unassuming, speckled with blood on his thin blue shirt and jeans, pulling himself to a chair before clicking on a computer.

The doors at the front of the building opened with a loud click and hiss.

John looked up at Phil with a small smile before it fell, a frown etching onto his features.

"It's going to blow up." There was a small inflection of pride in his voice, "I came in with someone," his tone took a turn, it was low, quiet and slightly scared maybe, "but he got caught." Phil knew exactly what happened when HYDRA 'caught' insurgents. "I don't..."

"Come with me," Phil offered out a hand, wondering if it was entirely contrived, treating the child like a child when he'd just taken out more than a dozen HYDRA agents, unarmed from what Phil was able to see. But the boy was still a boy, regardless of what he could do, and this was no place to leave him. "We'll get out of here together."

If asked, and he knew he would be, Phil wasn't sure how he'd explain it. Two agents lost in the compound, a small boy retrieved and the mission not a complete failure, but a failure none the less. He received a raised eyebrow from Agent Hill when he arrived at the extraction point; tired, cold and leading a small, blood stained boy onto the jet.

He wasn't asked until they boarded the Helicarrier, "He's the reason HYDRA are one base down." Phil just took John to the medical sector, trying to ignore the way the boy was almost attached to his leg to avoid other people.

*

There's not a word from John as the medical staff try to look him over. He goes pale and stiff when a nurse tries to remove his shirt, has to be coaxed into letting her remove it, and then she goes pale and stiff when she does. Phil sees the crisscross of lines on the boy's back when the nurse gets him into a larger t-shirt, getting his muddy shoes and blood-stained pants off in the process. Two lines are stark along the white of John's skin, along the base of his spine, while numerous lines cross each other up the expanse of his back, white and faded, silvery imperfections on a body too young to bare them.

John doesn't comment as the nurse smooth's a Power Rangers bandaid over a scrape on the boy's knee, giving his hair a soft ruffle before she excuses herself. He hasn't made a sound.

He doesn't utter a sound, even when Director Fury enters the room, eye widening minisculely at the sight. John just carries on staring at the floor. There's no time to explain, there isn't even a demand for an explanation, before the doctor arrives and John sits quietly through the entire examination; following directions and only making sounds or answering when directly needed to.

"Well," they stand in a corner of the room, John perched on the end of the bed, staring at the floor again in silence, while Fury and Phil watch Dr. Maxwell carefully, "he's underweight, under fed, there are--" a low sigh and the dejection of a doctor disillusioned, "definite signs of abuse, long term abuse, but beyond that, he seems to be in good health." There are scars and bruises, mannerisms that can't be ignored, actions over the last few hours that shock and appall. But they can't be changed.

"Coulson, with me, I want a full debrief on the mission. Doctor, make sure he gets fed and sleeps. We'll see about child services in the morning." Phil spares a glance over a John, who's tensed up on the cot, staring at the floor with wide terrified eyes. He feels a knot twist in his gut, even as he leaves the room with Fury, especially when he catches John looking up, watching him leave.

*

The debrief takes three hours, going over every last detail, trying to work out where they went wrong, how to salvage the information they lost, figuring out the potential risks in the failed mission. Phil starts to feel the headache crawling up his spine, but it's to be expected, it's been a long day.

"Um, Director Fury, sir," the junior agent is so obviously uncomfortable, interrupting a debrief and looking for the attention that few ever really want focused on them, "there appears to be a problem in medical."

"Problem? What kind of problem?" Phil's blood chills slightly; he remembers the scene in front of him when he dropped into the lobby of the HYDRA base. Had he brought a security risk on board? Had he potentially unleashed a homicidal child plant in the base? HYDRA were the type to sacrifice agents to the cause; a dozen or so bodies was acceptable if it brought down the SHIELD Helicarrier.

"We've um...we've lost the child." No bodies then, although it doesn't ease up the chill in Phil's body.

"You've lost-- How can you lose a child? He's three feet tall! Find him!" There are alerts all through the base, spot checks everywhere, elevators locked down, emergency hatches locked. The base wide alert that there was a 'small, potentially deadly boy, presumably six-years-old' missing on base is met with looks of surprise and disbelief.

It takes a further hour to find John, curled up in a ball above the mess, hiding in the air-ducts. Phil should've thought about it first, the way John navigated the HYDRA base in the vents, the silence in his movements, the ease of travel. It makes sense that he'd find solace in the air-ducts of the base.

"Care to explain yourself?" Fury stands, imposing and impassive, while John is hunched and curled into a seat in the debrief room. His legs are hugged to his chest, the t-shirt he wears pulled down over them and tucked under his feet. Phil's finding it difficult to match this scared child to the boy that rescued him. "Listen, John, that's your name, right?" There's no response, "Nothing is going to happen to you now. We're going to take you to somewhere nice, and they'll find your home, they'll take care of everything."

"Orphanage?" John's head pops up, eyes that startled way again, shaking his head. "Don't wanna." His voice is barely above a whisper.

"You were in an orphanage?" Maria is much more careful, kneeling down to John's eye level as Fury takes a step back, watching. "If you tell us your last name, we can find out which one, and you don't have to go back. We'll find somewhere better." They could possibly find other relatives, if the boy is an orphan, maybe family that the state couldn't locate.

"Ran away." John isn't meeting anyone's eyes; he's found a place between the table and Maria's shoulder to stare, avoiding everyone in the room.

"Where have you been staying?"

"The circus."

"Is that where," Maria runs a finger gently over a puckered scar on the boys arm, just by the top of his elbow, running up to fade under his sleeve, "you got these?" John just nods. "Who were you with? When Agent Coulson found you?" John glances over, and Phil manages a tight smile, hopefully somewhat reassuring, and John bites his lip before turning back to Maria.

"'m not allowed t' say." The fear is back in those soft blue eyes, his eyebrows furrowing. "We were only going for some information, but then there were guns and I didn't get in fast enough and he--" John shook his head.

"What information?" Fury takes a step forward, causing John to lean back and stare up at him with wide eyes. It makes the Director take a small step back, to draw in slightly, appear a little less imposing.

"Letters and numbers, on a screen. He said I had to learn them, 'cause he wasn't gonna pay." Phil can see something flash over Fury's face, a consideration of something before it's gone. "I um...I could show you. You want them too, right?" John looks almost hopeful. "I remembered them all, so I could tell you and then you don't send me back?"

"Sir," Fury looks to be considering it, which causes Agent Hill to stand to attention and stare at him; Phil's not sure what he should be thinking. The boy did save his life, but he's just a boy, a child. This world is no place for him.

Capable or not, Phil can't see Fury agreeing, he really can't. John's just a boy; they've come across child operatives before, never as adept at things, never more than cannon fodder, never considered potential assets, just expendable weaponry used on the front line by enemies who care little for casualty lists. They've _never_ contemplated using one themselves. Phil doesn't believe that Fury would change that now.

"You can't stay here," John's shoulders slump, his facial expression shuttering closed, the hope disappearing and resignation seeping in, "but, we will make sure you're placed in a good home, somewhere that you will be taken care of." They've got former operatives of their own; too old to carry on, wounded and on desk jobs, intel gatherers on leave, numerous people who would be able to take John and work with the background he clearly needs help coping with. "And when you're older, we'll reassess things."

The boy seems to think it over, mulling over the negotiation from the Director before he nods, the movement almost miniscule.

"I'll tell him," John jerks his head towards Phil, barely looking away from Fury. There's a moment of silent consideration between Hill and Fury before a nod of consent from the Director and Phil takes a step forward. It's how he finds himself alone with the boy again, a laptop in front of them as John types out all the letters and numbers, the character sequences that held the key to several of HYRDA's prototype weapon bases.

"This is," Phil's never seen the likes of this before, the way John barely needs to think before his fingers just dance on the keys in front of him. "How do you remember this?"

"I don't know, I just do." John sounds exactly like a child again, shrugging his boney shoulders as he kneels up to be at a workable height with the table. "I can just remember stuff, he always said," there's a stretch of silence, John sighing slightly, and Phil can't help wondering again who 'he' is. "It's the only thing 'm good for."

"John," Phil carefully and gently places a hand on the boys shoulder, watching the way his muscles tense but not pulling away, "there are so many other things that you will learn, and they will all make you special. He's wrong." It doesn't matter who 'he' is, or what 'he' trained John for, or even what 'he' told John. No child should ever believe they were good for just one thing.

The muscles under Phil's hand relax, a small shy smile pulling at cracked lips and a blush on the boys cheeks adding some much needed colour to his skin.

"My name's Clint." He looks away from the screen, the smile growing to show some white teeth, "My real name, it's Clint Barton." Phil just nodded slightly.

"It's nice to meet you, Clint."

*


	2. Phil Coulson; a six-year-old's saviour

Director Fury places Clint with Georgina Loomas. Agent Loomas was out on medical leave following a gunshot wound to the hip, her movement was greatly restricted, but she was an unassuming woman, warm in a way most operatives weren't after a few years, bright and lively despite the injury that hampered her mobility. She was unmarried, childless and willing to take on the young boy with a rather bleak past.

"He's been having trouble adapting," Phil had never worked with Agent Loomas on a face to face basis, there had however been two operations where they were in communication through the system, allowing each to work in tandem on logistics. The second operation they worked alongside one another was also the one that side-lined Loomas. Phil recognizes her voice through Fury's slightly open door, steadier than it had been when he'd last heard Agent Hill coaxing Loomas to stay conscious until the medical evac team arrived. "He has to be coerced into interaction of any kind, he barely eats although I know he's hoarding food, he tucks himself away into the tightest of places and stays for hours, not to mention the nightmares." Loomas just sounds tired, her own tiredness mirrored in Fury's tone.

"What about school?"

"I get the same reports back week after week," it's been one month since Clint was enrolled in an everyday, run of the mill elementary school. It was the first time he'd ever attended. "Clint doesn't speak up in class, Clint doesn't play with the other children, Clint is very shy, Clint sometimes disappears for several hours and sends the entire school into a mass panic." There's a hint of amusement there, and Phil remembers the agility in the boy, his ability to disappear from right under the medical faculties noses. "Apparently, he's rather intense."

"What?"

"From what I can tell, Clint has a staring contest with the table every day, I think he usually wins. It's creeping out the teachers." Phil can hear Fury's sigh, the same sigh that usually comes after a meeting with the World Leaders Council, and Phil takes that as his cue to leave the hallway.

He tries to put it to the back of his mind, to push thoughts of Clint and his adapting to the 'normal' world aside and get on with work. There are infiltrations on HYRDA bases to plan; thanks to the information that Clint passed on they've managed to locate seven of HYDRA's weapon prototype manufacturing bases. A full scale assault is being planned that will hopefully deal a huge blow to the enemy, potentially as big as the blow that Captain America dealt when he plunged into the ocean with the tesseract energy cube.

Phil is invested in this operation, he's put days upon days of work into it and he cannot afford a distraction now.

"I'm thinking we'll be moving Barton to Agent Jameson's care." It's directly after a final mission brief for the infiltration of a HYDRA base in Milwaukee, Agent Hill is standing by Director Fury's side, forms to be signed off on for requisition and whatever else Hill needs Fury's affirmative for that afternoon. "Loomas was possibly too cautious." Phil feels his spine tense up, thoughts flying through his head that have absolutely nothing to do with the HYDRA missions.

Agent Jameson is a forty-year-old former Secret Service agent currently on leave pending knee reconstruction and retesting. Agent Jameson has two sons and a divorced wife, an exemplary employment history and beyond question work ethic. However, Jameson has no patience. Where Loomas was a good fit because she was unassuming, motherly and non-threatening, Jameson is none of those things and entirely not suitable for a skittish, shy, former abuse case like Clint.

"If you think its best, sir." Phil can't hold back the snort of distaste, apparently drawing attention to himself as he gathers the files and mission briefs that will be slotted into files or destroyed pending the mission outcome.

"Something to add, Agent?" Normally, Phil would bite his cheek and avoid questioning the Director. He was moving up the ranks of SHIELD agents, yes, but Phil knew that undermining the Director's orders or considered course of action was not a good way to maintain said position. But something's just couldn't be ignored.

"With all due respect, sir, that's a terrible idea." As far as Jameson was concerned, Phil had no grudge against the man. He was capable and decent; both as an agent and as a father from what Phil could discern from personal files that he often had to peruse. "While Jameson may be a suitable father for his own children, he lacks the tact, patience or demeanor to handle a six-year-old abuse case being thrown back into society." Phil didn't know why anyone was surprised at Clint's floundering; from what they could tell he'd never attended school, been trained from his earliest years into being a side-kick for what they could only assume was some kind of thief or arms-dealer who worked out of a travelling circus, not to mention the horrific abuse over an extended period of time that Clint seemed to accept as 'normal'. "Frankly, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Barton will either disappear within a few days, or regress even further and that'll help no one."

"Well then," it takes Phil exactly four point seven seconds to realize he's been played, "if that's how you feel, I guess there's only one man from the job." It's the first time in his career that he's imagined punching his superior in the face.

*

There were some good points and bad points of suddenly being made the guardian of a six-year-old assassin in the middle of an attempted deprogramming. The first thing is the promotion, undoubtedly. Phil's been with SHIELD for just under five years now, he'd expected it would take him the approximate seven before he reached clearance level twelve, which was the third highest, he's sure. But turning into Clint's guardian meant he was cleared to know just about everything Hill knew. It was a definite perk.

A draw back was that he was benched for ops unless absolutely required; the child needed stability, a guardian disappearing on operations every two or three weeks for indeterminable lengths of time would not do that. It wasn't like he stopped working, no; it was just that the promotion and current assignment with Barton meant he was basically thrown into a handler position, despite being under qualified technically.

Then of course there was Clint himself.

Phil remembers young boys, he is the middle child of five, he has a younger brother, he remembers the mess and the noise and the constant activity. He doesn't see it in Clint. In the two days since Clint was moved into Phil's small apartment, Phil's hardly heard a sound from the boy; there's no television requests, no breaks or noise from his bedroom, no screaming for attention, no loud, imaginative games.

At the very least, Clint does make eye contact, something Agent Loomas said was a struggle at first. He never seems to have preferences for food choices, never offers out wanting to do anything or needing anything, he takes anything that's given to him with reference and thanks, but never asks for a thing. If Phil thought he could get away with it without needing to explain himself, he'd call his mother for help.

SHIELD had been helpful in suiting out Phil for the six-year-old house guest. Clint had a bed, wardrobe filled with new clothes, toys that were age appropriate, books that were both educational and recreational, movies to watch and a selection of cuddly toys that made Phil wonder just who had gone shopping for the kid. Clint hardly touched any of them.

In an attempt to pull Clint out of his shell, Phil took a Saturday on leave. "Do you want to go to the zoo today?" In public, Clint was the epitome of well behaved; he held Phil's hand to cross the street, he didn't have tantrums, he stayed where Phil could see him and never once vanished as he was so prone to doing.

"What're those?" Clint stood, staring at the lemur enclosure with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. Two of the animals were chasing one another, hopping from branch to branch and dangling from their tails. Phil smiled slightly at Clint's obvious fascination while he read off the information sheet about the lemurs and their traits.

It wasn't until later that evening that Phil thought maybe the zoo hadn't been the best idea. His apartment wasn't large, by any stretch of the imagination; what affordable New York apartment was? There were two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette attached to the open living room. There were fewer places to lose a sock never mind a child, but somehow, Clint still managed to disappear. Twenty minutes to looking in the most outrageous places and wondering just how he was meant to explain to Fury that he'd lost the child within the first two weeks, and Phil saw a flash of moment on the window ledge.

"He wouldn't." They were on the fourth floor, a strategic move for Phil really; the top of the building was the most defensible space. It seemed it was also Clint's preferred playground. "What in God's name are you doing?" Phil never believed he'd be hanging out of the window, staring at a boy dangling by his legs from the opposite building's fire escape. "Are you out of your mind? Get in here!" One wrong move, one accidental slip, one faulty piece of metal and Clint would be plummeting four stories to his death. Phil's throat hadn't felt so tight since a botched operation in Kuwait.

He was already kicking himself for his tone, for the harshness of his words as he saw Clint's face shutter and turn scared, that fear inching into blue eyes as his arms came up to grab the edge of the fire escape his legs were hooked on. Phil was about to say something, he wasn't sure what, but something to try and erase the look on the boy's face, but everything just stuck as Clint moved. In what had to be the most agile display Phil had ever seen, Clint's legs dropped from hooking around the metal, his body dropping until it was held only but his small hands on the frame of the fire escape before he swung one arm out to pull himself higher and then twisted his body to lunge up and across the five foot gap between the buildings to dangle himself from the ledge above Phil's window.

It took Phil a few seconds to realize that he had to move in order for Clint to get back inside, still stunned at just how Clint moved, Phil was gaping at the boy as they both stood in the main room of the apartment. Clint's head was lowered, arms loose by his side even as his whole body was tense and Phil realized he was waiting for a striking blow. He'd known taking care of the boy would be difficult, he hadn't known how much.

"Clint," sighing, Phil rubbed a hand over his face, "don't play Tarzan on the fire escapes please, it's not good for my blood pressure or your health, okay. We'll," Phil had no idea just how to fix this, "we'll find a park somewhere with some climbing frames, okay?" Clint nodded, but didn't look up. "Did you learn that in the circus?" Another nod from the boy but no answer. Usually, asking Clint a direct question got him talking. "What else did you learn there?"

Maybe things weren't active enough for Clint, maybe that was the problem. He went from sitting in a class room to sitting in an apartment when before, he was swinging from trees it seemed.  Maybe Phil just had to get him doing more.

*

He'd never seen himself as a 9-5 worker before. The idea of it had made his skin crawl before. Phil liked the spontaneity of military work, there was always something to do, there was anticipation and action almost constantly, order and focus. But he's finding that maybe he was wrong about the structure of a 9-5 work day. His primary function for work at current is data handling and managing, which he's always known he was good at. Phil's always been good with details.

Clint is dropped off at school at ten to nine, he's been getting better reports, he's made one friend, which Phil thinks is progress, even if Clint made that friend because he punched another boy in the playground. Phil's taking the wins where he can, and Clint no longer stares at the tables, he's moved to the walls, which is a step up. After dropping Clint at school, begging the boy not to take a nap in the air vents while he's meant to be in class, Phil spends his day at a home base in Manhattan, sorting through potentially useful information and utterly useless information. He has junior agents of his own, ones that know better than to give him chicken scratch reports after he showed them that a six-year-old had better writing than they did.

They think he's a stressed out widower, or a frustrated divorcee, but they all think Clint's his son, even if they've never seen him.

At five o'clock every night, Phil leaves the office. It doesn't matter what's finished and what's not, he'll take it home with him if he needs to, but he has to leave at five, because at fifteen minutes past five Clint will be on the sidewalk waiting for him and Phil refuses to be late after the one time he was and Clint looked destroyed. Phil's not foolish enough to believe that all Clint's troubles will vanish just because they're setting up a somewhat stable system for him. The boy clearly still has fears of being abandoned and Phil is determined to not be a cause of pain in that regard.

"I've been invited to a party." Clint holds the small invitation in his hand; it's brightly coloured with balloons and cake, curly writing detailing the time and place of the party. Apparently, Hannah Montgomery is turning seven and would like Clint to come to her party in the park. Clint looks positively terrified.

"Do you want to go?" Forcing him to interact with other children doesn't help, Phil found this out the same day Clint punched a boy -and Phil is impressed that a six-year-old knows how to throw a proper punch just as much as he's horrified by it- because Clint doesn't take well to just being thrown into things.

"I-- I don't-- I mean, what's a party like?" Phil spends the evening trying to explain birthday parties to a moderately confused Clint, who has rather reasonable questions that Phil just cannot answer because he's not overly sure there is logic to be found in 'pin the tail on the donkey' or the purpose of a piñata. In the end, Clint decides that yes, he'd like to attend Hannah's party and Phil is struck by the sudden thought that he now needs to find a gift for a seven year old.

"Why are you asking me this?" Phil's not sure what possessed him to use the private line to the Helicarrier for _this_.

"Presumably, you were once a seven-year-old girl, Agent Hill. Unless I missed that memo."

"You know, this assignment's turned you snarky," there's a hint of amusement in Hill's voice and Phil's glad for his patience, he really is, "I think it like it." Phil spends forty minutes discussing gift options for seven-year-olds before they turn to actual SHIELD business and that takes all of fifteen minutes and then Phil's out shopping. Standing in the Barbie aisle of Toys 'R Us, Phil wonders if maybe the universe hated him.

*

Maria's suggestion of the 'sparkliest, pinkest Barbie that you can physically handle staring at' went down a treat, because Hannah Montgomery positively _squeals_  when she opens Clint's present at the party. Phil can't help but feel a little bit proud at the way Clint _doesn't_  tense up when Hannah hugs him. Apparently, Clint had gotten used to the other kids touching him.

"You know, all I hear about from Jason these days is 'Clint this' and 'Clint that' and 'Clint did this really cool thing today'." Jason isn't Clint's chosen playmate, but the other children seem more taken with Clint that Clint does with them. "He seems like a lovely boy." Mrs. Ingles is Jason's mother, Phil ends up cornered in an open park by three of Clint's classmate's parents.

"Debbie adores him, we've been meaning to invite him over for dinner some time," Debbie, the small blond haired girl who clutches to her pink bunny and is never far from Clint _is_  Clint's playmate. Phil can see why. She's adorable, in that six-year-old way, smiles shyly anytime Clint looks at her. Phil's mostly glad he didn't really scold Clint for punching the Derek boy in defense of Debbie. "You'd be welcome to join us, Mr. Barton."

"It's Coulson," Phil is aware that the women are looking for gossip, it hardly matters anyway, beyond his name, everything that they'll learn is a lie. "Phil Coulson, Clint is, um, he's adopted." Agent Hill had set up the background after it became clear that Clint was suited better to Phil's care. Agent Loomas was set up as Phil's ex-wife on paper with a new name, the school were informed of a supposed split and Clint being left in Phil's custody and the rest was just to build as they went along.

"Oh, that's so sweet." Debbie's mother is a single parent; Debbie's mother is rather the opposite of Debbie. "And you're on your own? I mean, you don't have a partner?" Phil manages not to bristle at the obvious prying.

"Divorced." The terseness he puts into the tone must set something off between the females, as they start going on about broken relationships and gossiping about other parents. Phil learns more about Clint's classmate's families than he really wants to know in that afternoon.

It's late by the time the party winds down, and Clint looks dead on his feet in a way that brings a smile to Phil's face. There's no protest of stiffening as Phil scoops up a still underweight Clint to carry him to the car, taking the goody bag with cake and sweets from Hannah's mother with thanks.

"Did you have fun?" Clint's head lolls onto Phil's shoulder, his arms just hanging around Phil's neck as they cross the park.

"Yeah," it's different, seeing Clint act like the child he is, instead of stoic and quiet like the boy he was forced into, "the clown wasn't all that good. Murphy was a better clown."

"Who's Murphy?"

"He was the clown at the circus, he could juggle fire and balance on balls and he always got hit by the ele'ant." Phil slowed his pace as Clint's voice got softer, his arms tightening his hold on Clint's form to keep him from jostling. "Murph an' Cara took care of all the animals." Clint doesn't always talk about the circus; Phil's learned that Clint has certain acrobatic skills thanks to the circus, it's where his homicidal skill set was bred as well, but Phil tends to try and forget that. "This was almost that fun."

They're definitely making progress.

*


	3. Phil Coulson; Handler of SHIELD Agent ID #009382

For all that Phil liked his life before becoming Clint's guardian, he finds himself rather attached to this new life. Saturday and Sunday's are always days off now, he spends them doing some kind of activity with Clint, just to keep the child entertained and to help him adapt. Fury's mentioned a few potential options for full time adoption that might work out, but there's been little headway on that front. Phil's not overly put out that the HYDRA strike has taken up most of SHIELD resources and focus for the last three months; it's given him the time to get settled into this temporary life and help Clint move forward.

"Did you see the guy with the butterfly? That was totally cool. How d'ya think he did it?" That Saturday was spent in Central Park, watching an amateur dance company try to educate children on wildlife in the park through music, dance and colour. The way Clint's been talking about it, full of life and excitement, Phil's glad he decided to take the boy. "They didn't even have any wires, it's so cool. Like when Orla and Yani used to do the tumble, they'd only have wires and it was pretty cool, but they didn't have _any_  and that one girl was just super fast and her whole body just bent backwards. How cool was that, Phil?"

"Yeah," Phil laughed slightly, smiling down at Clint as they reached the bank for a quick stop before lunch. "They were pretty cool, weren't they?" Clint just keeps chattering on and on, and Phil's mostly happy to listen to him, because it's new, it a new development that he's coming to appreciate. Clint could talk all day and never run out of things to say; sometimes it's completely trivial things, like just whatever's running through his child mind at the time, others it's stories of lion tamers and trapeze artists and one man named Trick Shot that Clint marvels on about like he's some kind of God. Phil never interrupts or tells Clint to stop talk, he tries to take in as much as possible and ask questions just to keep the boy going.

But there's something wrong, about five minutes into queuing at the bank, Phil notices it; the way one of the tellers tenses up, her hands shaking minutely, her eyes darting towards the lone security guard by the door. Something isn't right.

Phil places a hand on Clint's shoulder and squeezes just slightly, drawing Clint's attention up to him and halting the jumble of words. There's this instant look of recognition in his eyes when Phil looks down at him and Phil's almost grateful that Clint isn't just a 'normal' boy. Because the smoke bomb comes first, the guard by the door is knocked out with a blow to the head and four armed men storm the back fifteen minutes before it was due to close. Phil pulls Clint close even as everyone is ordered to the ground, the sound of panic echoing around the bank. Phil goes smoothly to his knees, finger catching the emergency distress trigger on the side of his cell phone as he goes, altering SHIELD to the issue while not attracting attention. Clint presses in close to Phil and just watches, almost like he's awaiting instruction, and Phil wonders if maybe he actually is.

It's a simple robbery, that much is obvious from the shotguns and handguns that the robbers wave around, the black duffel bags that one cashier is ordered to fill up with money, while two of the armed men watch her, the other two stalking along the floor, terrorizing the handful of patrons cowering. Phil tries to watch everything, to keep track of what goes on, the get all the details.

One man is trying to get to his wife and child, on the other end of the floor from him, when one of the masked men kicks him in the stomach, pointing a gun at his head. If there's any way to get out of this without exposing people to bloodshed, Phil would like to see it happen.

"No one's moving," he's mostly unassuming, he knows that. He's not the obvious agent like Fury; he's not even obvious former military. It's always worked in his favour. Phil keeps his hands where they are easily seen and just tries to keep attention from the weeping child reaching for her father who lies gasping on the floor. "We're staying down; he's not going to move." Phil manages to catch the other mans eye, giving him a nod, encouraging him to just play this out without drawing more focus, to hopefully get everyone out without anyone dying.

"Hey--" except now both the gunmen on the floor are focusing on Phil, "didn't you have a kid?" Phil isn't stupid enough to glance back to see if Clint is still there, the fact that someone had to ask means that no, Clint is not by Phil's side.

"No," he's been trained twice over to lie, to manipulate interrogations, to work the facts until they say what he wants, even if that's not what they really mean, "I'm here alone."

"No, nah man, I saw it, you had a kid, a boy, where is he?" Tempers are starting to rise and Phil can see the flashing of lights outside, hear the choppers overhead. It's not going to end well. "Where the fuck is your kid man?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, I don't have any kids." And he doesn't need to manipulate that, not really, because he doesn't have children, not technically.

There's a scream as the gun is raised towards Phil, but another line of questioning doesn't start. The loud 'pop' of gun fire rings out in the building and the robber advancing on Phil drops to the floor with a jerk of the head, gun falling from his hand. The second assailant looks around, eyes wide and gun raised just as a second shot rings out and he drops in the next instant. Phil's just as startled as everyone else in the building, eyes darting around for some kind of sign as to where the shots came from. The other two robbers barrel around from the far side, duffel bags in hand and the bank teller between them.

" _This is the NYPD; we have you surrounded, throw out your weapons and come out with your hands above your head. We have you surrounded._ " There seems to be a moment where they consider making a run for it, or holding out for a hostage situation before they both look at the bodies on the ground and they decide on something else.

The whole situation is defused within minutes after that, although the police seem unaware as to where the shots came from that downed the two robbers inside. Phil is pacing by an alley a few feet away from the bank when he hears the muffled drop of feet inside the alley, turning to find Clint standing there, a gun in his hand and slightly dusty.

"What-- How-- Did you--" Clint just gives one nod, face impassive as it was the first time Fury questioned him on the Helicarrier.

"They were going to shoot you," Clint shrugged slightly, offering the handgun to Phil, "I had to stop them." It's the quiet conviction of a child that Phil just cannot argue with, even as he takes the gun, noting that Clint had already clicked the safety on.

"Where did you get this?" Because Phil's back-up piece was still in his ankle holster, he hadn't gotten the chance to draw it, and all the firearms had been retrieved from the gunmen.

"From the security guard." Phil has no idea how Clint managed to get to the security guard and then into a position that he could take two clean headshots without being seen, he can't even work out how Clint could manage it if he was a fully trained, twenty-year-old agent, never mind the six-year-old former circus boy that just did it all. "Am I in trouble?"

Phil doesn't know, he'd thought they were moving towards 'normal', towards Clint becoming an average boy with no above average training and definitely not the ability to kill two men in less than a minute. Running a hand over his head, Phil sighs, just as he spots the SHIELD issue SUV pull up along the curb on the other side of the road.

"No, Clint, no you're not in trouble." Whatever it is, they'll just need to deal with it. Tucking the gun away, Phil nods his head to Clint, taking his hand and walking over to the waiting car. They'll be expected on the Helicarrier, and Phil needs to work out just how he's meant to explain this to Director Fury.

*

As usual, the Helicarrier was a mass of activity. Agents coming and going left and right, and Phil was oddly underwhelmed by it. He'd thought maybe he'd have missed the direct action more. But Clint's small hand clutched in his was reminder enough just what he was doing now. Clint's led away though, taken by a nurse to be given a quick check over, just in case he got hurt and didn't mention it. Phil's fairly certain they won't look away from Clint at all while he's with them, the boy's ability to vanish starting to worry even Phil.

Phil isn't surprised when he's left with Agent Hill and Director Fury in the briefing room; he's not even surprised at the tension in both his superiors. The situation is so far from what any of them had expected, what anyone had planned for or been prepared for, there's no reason to have a plan in place for the events occurring.

"Agent Coulson, please," Hill indicates to the seat at the end of the table, while Fury watches him and Phil just takes his place without comment. "We understand that there was an incident at United International." Apparently, the best way to go at this situation is detached and cold. Phil could do that, it's what he was trained for.

"Correct," folding his fingers together, Phil kept his tone even and his gaze set on Fury. "During a personal errand, myself and my charge were involved in an attempted bank robbery shortly before closing hour this afternoon. Four armed men attempted to rob the bank at gun point, with a teller as an accomplice, with approximately a dozen hostages. Two shots were fired, from the side arm of the incapacitated security guard, both of which were kill shots to two of the robbers, before police secured the area and the remaining armed men surrendered."

"Yes, about that." Fury picked up a small, non-descript piece of plastic, pointing it towards the screens and they flared to life. It shouldn't have surprised Phil that SHIELD already had the security cameras from the bank, but he was moderately impressed as to the speed at which they'd managed to secure them.

The whole incident played out in front of Phil, and Phil made a point of watching Clint closely, because he was still trying to figure out how Clint managed it all. When Phil's attention turns to the man on the floor, Clint moves into action, as if he was just waiting for the moment of distraction to shift. Phil can barely track his movements across the floor, although he knows mostly where to look to see Clint quickly checking the security guards pulse and taking his side arm before he vanishes off screen.

The two gunmen are shot but Clint still doesn't return to screen, not to leave the bank, not to join the hostages, not to return the gun -and Phil knows that Clint didn't return the gun, which was actually very smart of him. He's just gone.

"Do you want to explain just _how_  a six-year-old boy managed that?"

Phil's just as stumped as everyone else. He's surprised they don't know this. His surprise isn't perfectly hidden, not from the likes of Fury and Hill, Phil knows that Maria Hill is much more capable than people give her credit for, and he's never once fallen into the mistake of underestimating her.

"Sir, I'm just as in the dark as you. We know that Barton is a capable child, we've always known what he was trained for, the fact that he's apparently also been emulating ninjas of some description shouldn't be too much of a shock, but the fact remains that the boy saved the lives of a dozen hostages, my own life and controlled an armed bank robbery _without_  being seen."

"He killed two men." Hill's voice raises slightly and Phil resists the urge to point out that Clint had already killed a handful of HYDRA agents when he was found and no one mentioned that.

"Yes, he used one shot for each, there was no collateral damage, no bystanders getting hurt and he minimized the bloodshed. He also made sure the guard was alive." Phil can see Fury thinking it over again, cogs turning in Fury's head while he considers _something_.

" _Um, Director Fury, sir._ " The intercom buzzes with the hesitant voice of what Phil can only assume is one of the medical staff. Again. " _The subject escaped. Again. He um, he slipped his cuffs._ " It takes a lot for Phil not to push back and march out of the room to find Clint. He is not a _subject_  and he should not be in _cuffs_. Fury raises an eyebrow at him and Hill glances away, so his reaction isn't entirely contained, he knows that, but neither of them call him on it.

"It's fine," Fury just sounds weary, like he half expected it maybe, "make sure whoever is on security detail down there is put on can patrol until we reassess their capabilities." Fury doesn't say anything else, he just watches Phil with that intense stare of his, made all the more intense because there's only the one eye. Phil doesn't flinch from it though.

"I knew I was in trouble." Where Clint appears from, Phil couldn't even begin to theorize. Hill physically starts, almost twisting out of her seat when she hears Clint's voice while Fury finally looks moderately perplexed. Clint just pulls himself into the other empty seat beside Phil and pouts at the table. Phil's too busy staring at the single silver handcuff around Clint's tiny wrist.

"How did you get out of medical?"

"They don't watch close enough." Clint answers like it's the most obvious answer in the world and Phil takes the moment to wonder if he really should try and find this circus that Clint was once a member of.

"And the handcuffs?"

"Barney an' me learned how to get outta them when we were in the orphanage." Clint was three and a half when he went into the orphanage; he said he was only just four when he ran away to the circus.

"And what about the shooting? Today at the bank? Just where did you learn how to shoot like that?"

"Trick Shot taught me." Clint shrugged. "I was learning all kinds of stuff. But I liked learning with Trick Shot best, 'cause he showed me how to shoot."

"You were learning how to shoot guns in the circus?"

"No, not guns. I learned how to do, um, archery? Yeah, archery, I learned that from Trick Shot but Swo-- I mean, he taught me how to use guns, in case I needed to. For work." Phil wonders on the slip up, works over the words in his head so much so that he misses Maria's line of questioning now that the Director is quiet.

"This isn't like we first assumed," there's no way not to pay attention to Fury's interruption. "We had hoped you'd be able to shake this, that you'd fit in with other kids and this would turn into a distant memory. That you'd settle with a normal family and live out life like a normal kid and grow up to be an accountant or something." Clint clearly knows that this isn't going to be good, and Phil feels something knot inside him. Fury can't possibly mean... "But this," a finger is pointed to the screen where Clint is still not seen but two gunmen are dead, "this is like sleeper-agents. The training clicks and you have no choice and that's a very dangerous thing. _You_  are a very dangerous thing."

Phil knows what happens to suspected sleeper-agents, he knows what happens to the cells that train and brainwash average people into horrible things. But Clint's only six, he's just a boy, Fury can't mean to...

"So retrain him." It's out of his mouth before Phil really knows what's happening. "He's young, he's smart, he's still fairly impressionable," Phil found that out after Martin and Rory had a play-date with Clint and Clint came home obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and maybe Phil's the one encouraging the mild ninja traits), Phil knows that Clint's still susceptible to the influences around him. "Deprogramming isn't as hard as it once was, it won't be as difficult now. Retrain him." Phil can see Hill readying her protest, but Fury's got a smirk on his face and Clint is gazing at Phil like he just presented him with a pet dragon.

"Well, Agent Coulson, if that is to be the case, _you_  will be fully responsible for _Agent_  Barton and his training." It has to be a record, some kind of history smashing feat. There's no way they've ever recruited anyone younger than Clint. But if this is the only other way, if it's this or termination of a six-year-old, then Phil really doesn't see that as a bad thing.

"Very well." It's later, when everything is processed within a few hours and Clint is officially registered as SHIELD Agent ID #009382 under Phil Coulson's direct command, when Phil realizes he's just been played again.

He feels less inclined to punch Fury this time.

*


	4. Phil Coulson; decorated agent and nervous wreck

Deprogramming external operatives is usually a long, arduous and intense procedure. There was weeks involved; blood, sweat and tears on both ends of the rope and occasionally, it just doesn't work. It's still surprising how simple things are with Clint. His rationality is skewed just slightly, Clint doesn't rationalise like most young boys, Clint doesn't even rationalise like most adult agents. Clint is able to justify certain choices that seem illogical from a stand point, but when explained in a bored and rather put out six-year-old voice, seem perfectly acceptable. It's a dangerous quality to have, but Clint is also exceptionally good at following a directive.

At least when they are explained to him for purpose.

The first time Clint had asked him 'why', Phil had felt himself stutter just slightly. Clint accepted Phil's response readily, following through with the directive without further question and passing the current test. Phil wasn't sure if maybe it was Clint's way of attempting to justify his responses, or if maybe this was Clint's way of protecting himself from what had previously happened, to stop himself from being used in such a way again, but Phil was fine with reasoning with the boy right then.

He hoped, eventually, that Clint would trust him enough not to question things. That Clint would come to trust that when Phil gave the order, there was no reason to question why. It's a lot to ask, even a lot to expect really, as Phil watches Clint take in everything around him and contemplate the other possible options; Clint doesn't second guess Phil's instructions all the time, but more than once, he's offered an alternative perspective, and Phil's come to realise that Clint has an unnaturally keen eye for details.

One important detail that Phil picks up is that Clint doesn't necessarily _like_  guns. He can use them, clean them, assemble them and conceal them, but he doesn't like them very much.

"They're too loud," Clint explains, shrugging slightly while sitting on a perch by the firing range. Phil always takes Clint when it's quiet, when there's no other agents around, because Clint is a top level security clearance secret. It's how Phil ends up discussing bow prototypes with R&D, how Clint ends up testing the developments over and over and over until he declares one to be perfect for him; weighted right, balance perfect, the tension in the recurve. Then it's the arrows. Phil doesn't want Clint to have any kind of troubles.

They end up with delayed detonation arrows, tranquilising arrows, EMP dispersing arrows, taser arrows, anything R&D can work into an arrow head without screwing up the ability to shoot it. The last one comes after Clint _throws_  himself off a building to avoid detection in his third sanctioned mission as a SHIELD agent. He's seven-years-old from what Phil can figure out, because Phil's been his guardian for a year now, and Phil is sure that every moment of that year flashes in front of his eyes as he watches on the display monitor while Clint free-falls from the perch he'd been hiding on.

There's little left about Clint's abilities that Phil doesn't know; it's how he manages to handle the boy well enough on missions, whenever someone else tries to take point, Clint barely lets them get a word in edgeways, his mouth running off with little to do with the mission in question. But watching Clint hook his bow over his shoulder, while falling seventeen stories to his death, before he grabs a poorly secured flag pole, twists himself around it to vault six feet to the left, grapple with a fire escape platform and then summersault gracefully from window ledge to ground without pause, Phil's certain he didn't breath for the two and half minutes it took Clint to reach the ground.

The next day, after Clint's been to medical and had his shoulder put back in place following it's dislocation from the initial grapple with the flag pole, Phil goes to R&D with his final request. Three weeks later, Clint has his quiver; it's outfitted with each type of arrow head, designed to cycle through each one with the touch of a button on his bow, and his failsafe is fitted in, a grappling wire, fitted to the quiver and allowing Clint to _safely_  rappel when needed without giving Phil a heart attack.

"Wow, I've never actually gotten a birthday present before." Clint's hands are careful as they stroke over the quiver, his fingers tracing the purple lines down the centre and up to the sides. Phil's fairly pleased with himself, and impressed that R&D could come up with something that suited the concept he'd offered.

"You seem more calm with a bow in your hands, and the armoury, it's just good logistics. You're an exceptionally talented person, Clint, there's no way I'm letting you out in the field with sub-par equipment." And it's another step to keeping Clint safe. If he has to be a field agent, which he's turning out to be very good at, better than anyone expected, then Phil is taking all the measures possible to keep him safe.

"Thanks," Clint doesn't ask for much, he's better than he used to be, occasionally requesting things that he needs, but Clint doesn't ask for anything for himself. Phil feels good just knowing that he's given something to Clint that wasn't requested, but is clearly appreciated. "It's awesome." And if a section of the firing range is carefully closed off and redeveloped for R&D testing, no one seems to notice that it's set up for archery.

*

For the most part, life seems to mesh easily. Phil shifts to working half days at the office base, Clint carries on with school and after Phil picks Clint up they grab dinner and either brief Clint for a local mission or they head to the range to test R&D's latest developments. Phil's sure he's created a monster, since half of the department take joy in cooking up something new for Clint to test, just because he sends them reports on their effectiveness in the manner that only a child would -usually on post-it notes with smiling faces or little frowning ones.

From time to time, Phil has to pull Clint from school for a few days, using custody agreements as an excuse and Clint heads off out of the country on something that no other agent could do. Fury has learned how to effectively wield the child agent; his sharpshooting skills are rivalled by none and his ability to get into the smallest of places is truly impressive. Coupled with the presumed eidetic memory, they've been forced to call on Clint more times than Phil is really happy with, considering he hasn't even hit double figures yet.

But everything seems to just work, regardless of how their days flow together or if Clint's even in the country. Sunday's are still days off, for both of them, and Phil is working his way around all the museums in New York to show Clint. For Phil, it's the perfect mix of work with some domestic life thrown in. He'd never really believed he'd find that, least of all in the situation that would breed raising a child, but all in all, it works out well.

Until Clint gets shot.

Statistically speaking, it was always probable. But understanding that it could, one day, happen and accepting it when it happened were wildly different things. On top of that, it's an assignment out of the state and Phil isn't the one running it. He's informed by Agent Hill that something went wrong with Agent Harper's team and their 'asset' was struck. Agent Harper may be getting a security clearance raise, but her team have been decimated in a fluffed assignment that was only saved by the grace of God.

Harper called in an emergency medical response evac helicopter, getting herself and Clint out of there before mass spread of an uncontrolled fire took out the rest of the evidence. Phil doesn't know anything about the operation; not where it was, not who was on it, not what it was for, all he knows is that Clint was an additional precaution added to the assignment at the last minute and was mostly kept secret. And that he was _shot_.

So Phil waits, pacing in the hall outside medical while they rush to prepare for a gunshot victim being rushed in. Only, they're all preparing for an adult, and Phil isn't sure how different it is when the victim is a child, but Fury is on hand to deal with that, and Hill isn't far behind.

Harper comes tearing down the hall; blood soaked herself and clinging to a lump in front of her. Phil's heart stops when he realizes that lump is Clint. There are medical response personnel rushing behind her, but Phil can see the way Clint's clutching tightly to Harper's shirt, her coat wrapped around him like a blanket as she holds him to her front. She doesn't spare a glance to anyone before she's pushing through into medical and barking out orders of her own, settling Clint onto the waiting bed and snapping at nurses until they pounce into action.

There's severe blood loss, Phil can tell just from the lack of colour in Clint's skin, possibly an onset of infection already, judging by the sheen of sweat that covers Clint's face and definitely a lot of pain, because Clint's only made _that_  whimpering sound when he dislocated his shoulder. Everyone is ushered out so that Clint can be taken in for surgery to remove the bullet from his gut and mend the damage before he bleeds out. Standing in the hall, Harper is almost as pale as Clint was, although Phil can't look anywhere but her face, because her hands and shirt are covered in Clint's blood.

"There's a leak." Harper doesn't waste time, her voice thready and shaking, but her words sure. "They knew we were coming, they knew where we'd be and when. The only thing they didn't know about was Agent Barton." It stood to reason that information was not secure, and since Clint was an Eyes Only level secret, sometimes not even field operative team leaders knew about the sniper watching over the mission to take out the target before infiltration.

"Agent Hill," Fury gave Maria a nod and the woman was off, briskly making her way down the hall with intent. If they did have a security breach, there would be a stop-point implemented on all active missions, there would be spot checks and security sweeps and halts on assignments until the issue was found and addressed. "Agent Harper, as soon as you've been treated, my office. Agent Coulson," if Fury for one second expected Phil to step foot away from medical, "stay and keep watch on Agent Barton," apparently it was understood that Phil wouldn't be leaving. "We all know how much he likes medical."

So Phil waits, he sits in the hallway, in the designated 'waiting area' and tries not to think about the potential damage done to Clint's small body. He doesn't think about the potential leak, how compromised missions could be, how compromised SHIELD's entire operation could be, tries not to think about how much worse everything could be. Clint could've been dead, like Harper's team, Clint could've been compromised the same way and instantly killed when the mission went hot. But he's not, and Phil clings to that, clings to the fact that wherever the leak, it's not high enough to know the sensitive things, like Clint Barton being there.

The doctors stop the bleeding, they patch up Clint's stomach and remove his appendix due to slight damage, they stitch him up, wire him to machines and let him sleep off the sedative. Phil moves from his seat in the hallway to a seat by Clint's bed, watching the slow rise and fall of Clint's chest and listening to the steady beep of the machines telling him the Clint is still there, still alive.

It takes Clint nine hours to wake up; Phil does little more than cat nap and read over reports he's given on the status of the containment of sensitive information and glance at Clint's medical file. There are too many blanks in Clint's history for it to really be useful. Things like mother and father missing, his birth date, where he was originally from. All that's there is the meager information that the orphanage had on file, and even that isn't reliable.

"What--" Clint doesn't like hospitals though, so the first sign of movement has Phil out of his seat, taking Clint's hand carefully in his own and trying to catch the boy's attention.

"Clint, it's okay, easy there." He'll be sore, and stiff, the doctors estimate that it'll take a few months before Clint's stomach heals completely, but he's younger than their usual patients, so it might be quicker. "You're on the helicarrier, do you remember what happened?"

"Mission," Clint's voice is soft, a little rough, and Phil passes him an ice chip from the cup by his bed. "There were explosions around the drop point, Agent Harper and Agent Owens, their cover was blown," Phil's read the basic report that Harper verbally gave while the investigation started, he knows the basics. "I took out the sighter, they had a sniper, he knew where the team were hitting, he had them already targeted."

"We know, we're looking into it." Phil's hand is drawn to Clint's head, stroking the soft hair back from his forehead. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I got shot." There's an amused curve to Clint's face, possibly the drugs, possibly just Clint being Clint, "Oh wow, I got shot." The amusement fades away, Clint's eyes widening slightly as one of his hands reaches over, as if to rub where the bullet entered his body and lodged in his gut.

"Don't," Phil warns, because he knows that'll hurt like a bitch, even with the medication that Clint's having pumped into him. "The doctors have patched you up, you'll be okay." Even if he does have a scar that no seven-year-old should have.

"Can we go home?"

"Not yet," Phil doesn't mention the swelling of something warm in his chest, Clint's reference to their apartment as  _home_  shouldn't make him relax, it shouldn't make his shoulders ease or his heart unclench. But it does. The ease at which Clint just does it makes everything feel simple for that one blinding moment. "When you've rested some more, then we can, when you're a little stronger."

It takes three more days for the doctors to agree to release Clint, mostly because of his five escape attempts within nine hours, although he's confined to bed -or couch- rest for the next four weeks before his checkup. Phil is ordered to keep Clint home, help him rest up, that neither of them are to step foot on SHIELD property until the leak has been located.

Phil doesn't argue, because as much as he'd prefer to help find the leak, he will not jeopardize Clint's safety, which means keeping him secret. And if Phil makes it known that Clint will never be sent on another mission or assignment without Phil as his handler, Fury doesn't argue.

*


	5. Clint Barton; orphan, carnie freak, SHIELD agent

It takes longer than Clint would like for his stomach to heal. As much as he's used to the pain of healing wounds, he's not used to being stationary through them. Phil's adamant that he rest, and with the ban from SHIELD base in place, Phil seems to think it's a good time for a vacation. Clint's never been on a vacation before, and from what he hears from Agent Hill, it's the first time for Phil since he started at SHIELD.

They seem to reason that it's not like Clint could go to school anyway, and the year finishes up soon, so he'll not miss much, they can afford a two week break in Florida. The sun and heat is nice, Clint's used to travelling at least, so he's not overly shocked by the difference between New York and Florida. They spend time at the beach, although Clint doesn't remove his shirt because of the bandaging around his waist, and they go to the animal parks but mostly they stay at the villa Phil's got them and just rest up.

Clint's sure this is what normal is meant to be like.

Its three days before they're due to head back to New York, and Clint isn't sure if he's looking forward to it or not, when a pretty lady keeps glancing over at Phil while they're in a restaurant for dinner. Clint isn't sure if Phil doesn't notice it, isn't attracted or is actually hiding a significant other somewhere that Clint doesn't know of -and Clint does actually know a lot of places to hide things in the apartment they live in, he'd done a very extensive search the first week he'd stayed there.

"You could go talk to her." Phil frowns at him, which means he's probably oblivious to the attention he's receiving. "The brunette, at the bar, she keeps smiling at you." Clint's good at noticing things; six potential exits from the restaurant based on his and Phil's current location, five possible places for cover from the front door, two places with cover from any angle, nine different options for close range weapons, five options for long range weapons. He's noticed the way the brunette sits just a little away from her company, how she continues to glance over with a small, coy smile when Phil isn't looking, how she's waved off three offers of a refill from the bartender. "Maybe you could buy her a drink, that's a good place to start, right?"

"Clint," Phil does glance over; he offers a small smile before looking back at Clint, "I don't think it's a good idea."

"Why not? You're not dating anyone, and you're not married, or are you? Are you married but waiting for a divorce or something?" In the year and a bit that Clint's been living with Phil, there's never been any sign of a partner of any kind. Georgina was different, when Clint stayed with her for a while, she'd gone out on a few dates and Clint stayed with the next door neighbor, listening to her talk about her dead husband and the war. But Phil just...never went out with anyone.

"No, I'm not," Clint knew it, realistically, "I just don't think it's a good idea, with work and all."

Clint left it alone, even if he wasn't sure why Phil decided to live on his own, without a partner, of his own free will. Half of Clint's classmates mom's all thought Phil was a catch, which Clint was sure meant they wanted to date him. Phil didn't get the brunette's number, and she looked mildly disappointed, Phil didn't even blink.

Clint noticed it even more when they returned to New York. Phil got looks, side glances from women; sometimes the cashier at Food Stop would bite her lip and almost plead with her eyes. Clint wasn't sure if that was entirely professional or not, but it was a little bit weird. Even his teacher did it. Not the desperate eyes thing, but the soft laugh, hair flick and lean in thing. But Phil was just always contained and professional and cool.

"Do you not like girls?" Clint was pretty sure that Orla's brother was the same. Klein never had a girl, but Clint was pretty sure he'd sneak off with townie boys from time to time, but Clint never said anything, not even to Barney. Phil just choked on his coffee and ended up coughing over the sink until he got his breath back. Four hours later, one talk about biology and it 'being okay to be different' and Clint was sorry he even asked.

When he asked Agent Hill about it, if she was dating anyone or married, she got this weird pinched look on her face and Clint was subjected to yet another awkward talk about age differences and infatuations and Clint didn't actually have the guts to tell Maria that he hadn't meant it like that, because really, he wasn't even eight yet. He'd only just figured out that girls weren't yucky, and Maria was far too old for him.

"Adults are weird." They still hadn't been allowed on SHIELD bases; although Clint was back at school the week after the doctors took the stitches out his side, two months after he'd been shot on mission. Sometimes, Agent Hill would stop by the apartment with paper work for Phil, or Director Fury would just randomly materialize out of nowhere at all, which Clint thought was kind of cool. Agent Harper came over once, she had put in for a transfer to the SHIELD sister agency SWORD, whatever that was, and wanted to make sure Clint was okay.

It was pretty cool; Harper brought a home baked brownie and gave Clint a pack of trading cards. He had no idea what to do with those, but he kept them anyway.

*

Three months after the start of the investigation, Phil picked Clint up from school in a non-descript black SUV, face solemn and serious.

"We've been called in." It's not unusual, they sometimes go straight to SHIELD from school, or from wherever they've had dinner if Phil's not cooking, but usually, Phil's not as serious about it all. Clint doesn't ask though, he just sits in the passenger seat, watching out the window as they drive to the air strip. So they're being called into the carrier, not just the base, which must mean something fairly important.

Fury had been adamant that neither of them show face, just because he was worried about how much this mole in the organization could divulge of SHIELD operations. Clint knew that he was more of an asset as a secret; for all that he boasted his aim and agility, his memory working in his favour and his skill in moving from place to place silently, he was only truly useful as a secret. Because adult agents were likely just as good, probably better, than he was at all this stuff. It was just the no one ever expected the kid to be the threat.

So for Fury to call them in, potentially while there was still a leak in information, meant that something big was happening and Clint was likely to be used as the secret weapon, again. He didn't mind, really, he was starting to get a little jittery from inactivity. He _liked_  being an agent, even if they did say he still needed to keep up 'normal' kid stuff, he knew he preferred it when they sent him out somewhere with his bow and a quiver full of arrows and told him what to shoot.

He'd been trained for worse since before he fully understood just what he was doing. Trick Shot saw a keen eye and Clint was more than thrilled to learn how to use the bow and arrow, to hit the target every time, learning the little tricks that he was taught. It was fun, it was a game, it was positive attention from an adult for the first time in Clint's life. Trick Shot quickly became Clint's hero in those early days. Swordsman, not so much. Swordsman saw a weapon, saw a tool, saw something he could shape to suit his own purposes. For all the pain and the bad stuff that he went through with Swordsman, Clint couldn't regret a minute of it.

"Okay," Phil took a breath, while they were circling in to land on the helicarrier, "Fury needs surveillance on three suspected infiltrators on the helicarrier. Agent Hill is covering one of them, Agent Sitwell will be taking another and the third one, I'll be dealing with." That sounded straight forward, so Clint nodded, showing that he was following along. "While we're doing that, we need you to break into each of their living quarters on the helicarrier and see if you can find anything suspicious."

Clint was the infiltrator, Hill, Sitwell and Coulson were the distraction, likely enough, for this one, Fury would be taking the handler position. Clint preferred these types of assignments, because he knew who was working around him, knew that they wouldn't hang him out to dry. Giving another nod, Clint smirked at Phil, it would be easy, by the end of the day, they'd have their leak.

*

It goes sort of pear shaped around the time Clint figures out that junior agent Ronald McLeod is the mole, the leak, the HYDRA operative on the SHIELD helicarrier.

McLeod, Garrett and Williams were the three under suspicion. Naturally, it meant that Clint had taken the time to nosy through Williams and Garrett's belongings before moving on to McLeod and finding everything he'd been looking for. Whoever McLeod was sending the information to didn't do a good job of hiding things. Clint had the basic computer skills, nothing like the skills Agent Hill had, but he could open up the emails and find the numerous attachments of SHIELD mission briefs and blueprints of the weapons development that was still to be signed off on and a few notes on some agents.

Clint had radioed to Fury to let him know, and then gotten back the information that McLeod had figured it out and Sitwell was out of contact in the docking bay. The hanger doors just happened to have over ride codes on the inside, not the outside, which meant getting to Sitwell and McLeod would require a system hack, and it was entirely possible that Sitwell would be dead by then with McLeod escaping with SHIELD technology.

"Um, Phil,"

"No, you are not going in there," Coulson and Hill both gave him a stern look, because the doctors had yet to say that Clint was actually cleared for anything. "We can handle this." Clint knew that Jasper Sitwell was one of Phil's friends. He was just below Phil's clearance level, and Clint was pretty sure that they both started with SHIELD at roughly the same time with roughly the same background.

"I was thinking you." He got blank stares and for the first time ever, Clint was sure Agent Hill was speechless. "Well, you remember when we went to Seattle? And the old service hatch was too big for me to properly fit down?" Clint had been forced to take over Phil's job while Phil had smooshed himself into the service box and lowered into the basement to grab blueprints they needed for a planned heist on a research lab with a giant laser. "It'll be like that, only you won't be stealing, you'll be shooting."

Which was how they ended up with Phil smooshing himself into the overhead vents to shimmy along into the hanger and hopefully drop down to take the shot at McLeod.

"He can do this, right?"

"You suggested it." Hill was watching something, but Clint wasn't sure what it was, he was too busy staring at the open hatch in the ceiling where Phil disappeared.

"Well yeah, because if it was smaller, I'd be able to, but it's too big, 'cause you gotta get in there with a whole bunch of tools and stuff, so they make them too wide, and I'd never get the right grip. I mean, I'm usually fine when I drop out, but it takes a minute to get my bearings and then he'd probably open fire." Hill stopped watching whatever she was watching to turn and stare at him.

"Does Coulson know that you crawl through the air vents on the helicarrier?" Phil did know, Phil knew that Clint didn't like being stuck in one room in the base, so he navigated around, but without being seen. Phil might not know exactly what Clint got up to; working out escape routes, spooking a few junior agents, spying on some agents, moving appliances around the break room just to annoy people, but Phil knew he wasn't in the corridors.

"I think the better question is 'does Director Fury know I'm crawling through the air vents', Agent Hill."

"He does now." Agent Hill instantly jumped to attention, rattling off what was happening, how long ago it happened and why they were standing around -or in Clint's case, sitting on the floor- waiting for news. Fury's eyebrow twitched. "Whose idea was this?"

"Um," Hill made an abortive look towards Clint and Clint just raised his own eyebrow. He wasn't sure if Fury hated the idea or not, because the guy didn't give much away. Clint sort of hated that. He'd learned a long time ago how to read people on first glance; he'd gotten Phil straight away, cool and competent, but with a loyalty and honesty that you didn't see in a lot of people. Hill was a little bit different, she was a rule follower, to the letter, sometimes even when she knew it was wrong, but her heart seemed to break away from her head sometimes. Fury was just too difficult; he had his moments of utter coldness that made Clint flinch away, but he could still show compassion at times that made Clint wonder which was the real side and which was the soldier. It was moderately infuriating and Clint still didn't know.

"It was my suggestion, sir." If Fury hated the idea, there was no reason for Hill to take the wrap for sending an agent into a situation that Fury would not have approved, and they didn't stop to run it past him, so it would be a big deal. Clint was used to taking punishments for his mistakes.

"Quick thinking Agent," the pat on the head just made the whole thing utterly condescending and Clint almost bristled before he realized it was Fury's way of deflecting the praise. "Where are we at?"

Fury and Hill stood there, discussing potential counter measures should they have to wait much longer. Phil obviously wasn't able to get in contact with them, less he alert McLeod to what was going on, so they had no way of knowing what was happening. By the time the hanger doors started to creak opened, Hill and Fury had four back up plans and one last resort of just blowing the hanger bay -which Clint was very much against.

"Sir," Phil seemed a little winded, pale and a tad unkempt, which was a new thing. Clint had never seen Phil anything but very put together. "Situation is contained." McLeod was out cold, his hands strapped behind his back with what Clint assumed was Sitwell's tie since Phil was still wearing his, and his ankles secured by the laces of his shoes. Clint was sure there was a handkerchief stuffed in McLeod's mouth.

"Good job Agent Coulson, escort Agent Sitwell to medical, both of you get checked out. Hill, have him taken to the brig, I want everything in his quarters cleared out and everything documented, all missions that are compromised are on hold pending re-evaluation." Coulson and Sitwell had already started hobbling down the hall when Fury turned to face Clint, giving a nod in Phil's direction. "Go make sure he actually lets them look him over."

Clint didn't wait to be told twice, running down the hall to catch up with Phil and Jasper, moving to let Phil lean a little onto his shoulders rather than limp as much. Phil just gave him a small, weak smile as they made it to the elevator to head up to the medical floor.

"I'm sorry, but," Sitwell had a gash above his eyebrow and bloodstains on his shirt, his side arm was missing and there was a rip in his pants leg. More than likely, he'd be wearing some black eyes in the morning too. "Who're you?" Clint just looked to Phil, not saying anything, while Phil smirked.

"Jasper, meet Clint Barton. You'll probably know him better as Hawkeye."

The rest of the elevator ride was spent with Sitwell gaping and spluttering about _Hawkeye_  being a _child_. Clint just grinned at Coulson as he squeezed reassuringly on Clint's shoulder.

All in all, it could've gone worse.

*


	6. Clint Barton; cold blooded killer no more

"Are you seeing this?"

"Radio silence, Hawkeye."

"Yeah, but are you seeing this? Seriously, is this for real? Are they on some reality show? They are, aren't they? This is a wind up or something. No one actually does this in real life, do they?"

"What part of 'radio silence' are you having difficulty with, Agent?"

"The part where this is actually real."

Clint could hear Phil sigh over the comm line, but it didn't really deter him. Phil was the only person who could hear Clint, so it hardly mattered what he said, and Phil had a private line to Clint, so no one else knew that Clint was chattering away.

"He's lighting a damn cigar, like, he's actually playing out 'The Godfather' right now. He's practically reciting it."

"You shouldn't even know that."

"Why not?"

"You're ten, Clint; you shouldn't even know what 'The Godfather' is about." Clint just snorted in response, smirking as he kept his line of vision on the target.

"Please, Maria and I watched all three of those that weekend you were sent to Modesto with Jones' team." Somehow, in the four years that Clint had been a part of SHIELD, he'd managed to end up being the pseudo-child/nephew/annoying-possible-grandson type to three of the scariest agents with the organization. And after Agent Sitwell got over the fact that SHIELD's record holding sharpshooter was barely out of kindergarten -not that Clint actually went to kindergarten- he'd ended up playing babysitter more often than not when Hill wasn't available. "Marlon Brando is the shit."

"Watch your mouth."

"Sir, yes, sir." Clint snickered slightly, quieting down for a short length of time. He knew that Phil might comment on it, but unless it was a serious and tense situation, Phil always answered back at Clint's comments. Clint knew when to shut up and work, and when it was just pointless to maintain silence and he could get away with a conversation, regardless of how ridiculous it was.

"Do you think they deliver? Their calzone actually looks pretty good, even if the kid in the kitchen is shaking like a--" there was something behind the shelves at the far end of the kitchen, something that was there and then not, slipping out of Clint's line of vision from his perch.

"Hawkeye?"

"They're not alone in there. Something's in the kitchen." Clint had come to discover, through SHIELD, that not everything was a 'someone' and occasionally there was a 'something' and Clint had stopped asking questions about those 'something's' when he was ten and there was a giant, alien octopus thing attached to his side, sapping the life out of him for four hours. Clint figured he didn't want to know about those 'something's' unless he really had to.

Clint knew that Phil was relaying the information, finding out what he could from what Clint mentioned and Clint just waited, quieting down while the situation adapted around them. He kept his bow drawn, arrow nocked for release should Phil give him the word. But in a bare instant, Clint was watching the target and the next second there was a small, black ceramic knife in his head and his company were on their feet, yelling and searching before the gunfire started.

"Abort mission; all agents pull back." Clint watched a moment longer, ready to leave his perch if Phil told him again, but he had a fairly good view of the carnage and-- It was one person, just one person and Clint saw a flash of red -not blood, but hair- before, "Hawkeye, base, now." Clint didn't push his luck by lingering longer, dropping from his perch and scampering along the ledge of the building to the fire escape before leaping to the roof of the next building and then clambering down and into the waiting car through the open sunroof.

Phil was silent the drive back to the pick-up point, not even a glance towards Clint, which meant something was going on. It wasn't like SHIELD would be the only ones interested in Scagnetti; he was a low-rent Kingpin from what Clint had deduced, the money moving, the gun running, the racketeering, it was all low level stuff. But it was enough to infuriate a few people, and Scagnetti wasn't exactly choosy about who he sold the guns to. The wrong people could take offense to that, or if he screwed over a client, there were a good few possibilities, and Phil was probably going through them all right now, trying to work out what happened where.

So Clint was fine, sitting there and keeping quiet while Phil analyzed away. Likely enough, it was just someone else getting the job done, so really, it shouldn't be anything to worry about.

*

Clint didn't find out how wrong he was for four months.

He'd pretty much put Scagnetti and the job that was completed for them out of his mind. He'd been moved schools, mostly because they'd had to move apartments because of some conglomerate company buying the apartment building and the one next to it for development or something. They'd been moved into a _house_. It'd been easier getting into things at his new school. He wasn't still waiting for Phil to give him over to someone else, or for Swordsman to come back and take him back to his old life, or for someone to say they'd made a mistake and haul him back to the orphanage. Clint was aware that Phil was keeping him, that SHIELD was keeping him, so it was just a case of settling in.

The school had him registered under Clint Coulson, which had made Clint stop and stare at first, until he got used to answering to the name and then it went smoothly. They school were under the impression that Phil worked for the army and that Clint was the orphan son of one of Phil's comrades. He still gets a lot of attention from the single mothers.

"They want me to join the soccer team." He'd just started sixth grade, a little ahead of the curve for whatever reason, but they'd taken him anyway. Clint wasn't sure if Fury had lied about his age just so they'd get him into a middle school that was closer to the house they were living in and the base of operations Phil still worked from.

"And you--"

"Really hate soccer." Clint found it fairly boring; why did he have to run around, trying to kick a ball, for however long, only to shoot it into a net? It seemed like a ridiculous concept really.

"So don't join, no one can make you." Which was true, Clint knew, but the coach was a bit of an ass, and normally Clint would do something stupid like break the guys arm, but that would likely cause a few issues with things.

"They say I need to take at least one sport. I can't swim, I'm too short for basketball and I don’t think football is a good idea either." Because he was usually nursing some kind of bruise, or he'd be pulled away at the last minute for a random mission, and they wanted him to do football games on Saturday mornings, and that wasn't going to happen.

"Not baseball?"

"The team's full." And that was how the school were given the impression that Clint had asthma and was unable to participate in sports activities. Which was just as well really, given that on the eve of the first soccer game to show off for the adoring parents; Clint was given a passport and new compact bow and told he was going to Moscow.

*

Clint had read that Mother Russia was a cold and harsh land, and it wasn't all that wrong, especially at the beginning of October. He knew he wasn't there to sight see, not even with the commercial flight into the country and into a standard airport; Philip Wright, on a business trip with his young son Kevin, according to their information and reservations at a hotel. 

It's later that Clint finally gets his mission brief. And that's when he realizes just why Phil's been so weird about this trip.

Clint's just been given his first kill order.

He feels a little weird about it himself too. It's not the first time he's _killed_ , not by a long shot, not even just for SHIELD; he's been in numerous combat situations since Fury and Phil finally started letting him _do something_ useful. But it's the first time his entire assignment has been an elimination job. Clint knows that Phil isn't entirely comfortable with this. It's one thing for Clint to be a SHIELD agent, because Phil is a SHIELD agent, but Phil isn't an assassin. Which is what Clint was always groomed for, it's what Swordsman honed him into, what he was built for from before he could rightly figure out that it wasn't _right_.

So he's not sure why this leaves him with an anxious knot in his gut either. Maybe it's the conflict; to do a good job, prove his worth to Fury and SHIELD, prove that he is an Agent, but not to disappoint Phil, to show that he is only good for this one thing, that Swordsman had been right from the very beginning. Even if Clint still hasn't opened up to Phil about that.

But in the end, Clint knew what it came down to. He had a target, there was a reason for his target, it was that simple.

Black Widow was apparently a seasoned operative of the Red Room, a soviet organization much like SHIELD but apparently with much shadier and much more dastardly schemes. These happened to include the planned murder of a US political head while on Russian soil. Clint was charged with stopping it before it started, by killing Black Widow.

Opera houses are not Clint's favourite places; they echo, it's a bitch to figure out where a target is when everything carries along the halls and the acoustics are so fucking annoying that Clint would like to shoot something just to hear the reverb on the bang. They're also pretty cold, and dank and dark. He doesn't mind the dark, but the dankness irritates him.

Clint gets a read on Black Widow exactly five minutes and nineteen seconds before he's meant to take the shot. The problem is that he gets a read on her the exact same time seventeen armed men apparently take offense to her presence. He's not exactly sure _how_  the Red Room works, or just how Russian spy slash assassins are meant to work, but it doesn't really look like they get along.

It's highly likely that he shouldn't do a thing, he should just detach himself from the entire situation and let it play out, then when the remaining four minutes and twenty-two seconds are over, Clint would take his shot and be gone. Simple.

Only it's seventeen armed men, one female, it's a fairly small area they've cornered her in, and while Clint can observe from his perch and hear the echoing groans and cracks of bone, she's taking as much damage as she's dishing out. It's around about the fifth guy that lunges, he's got a blade in his hand from what Clint can tell of the glinting shine that reflects up, and she doesn't move fast enough, allowing the blade to slice along her side before number five is out on the floor after a swift uppercut took out his nose and shattered bone into his brain.

Numbers six and seven fall just after, but by the time eight and nine move in, ten hot on their heels, Black Widow is lagging and Clint's fairly sure they're about to do his job for him. He's got one minute and nine on the clock when the first arrow flies free from his bow. It lodges neatly in the throat of number ten, halting eleven long enough that Clint gets the next arrow through his chest without problem. Black Widow takes down eight and nine with the aide of distraction and twelve goes down with Black Widow's knife in his gut and her garroting wire around his throat. She moves on to thirteen with ease, although her movements are slower than when she started and Clint fires off another arrow that pierces through fourteen's neck before passing through to stick into fifteen's lung. Widow finishes sixteen and seventeen easily with two bullets in the head each before she whips around to take aim at Clint, but he's already out of his perch where he knows she'll aim and dodging.

When Clint does drop down, he's five foot in front of her, in the midst of dying and dead bodies. Her arm lashes out, catching his jaw suddenly, but Clint rolls with it, kicking out for her ribs and catching them before using the leverage to flip backwards and away while she stumbles from the blow. They both come at each other again; Clint offering blows that Widow blocks, her looking for gaps in his defense that Clint twists away from. By the time their arms tire, the blood is almost pooling around their feet and Clint knows the time frame for Black Widow's assassination has gone.

They stop, finally, when only their breathing is left in the small space. Clint's surprised to note that she's possibly as young as he is, although he shouldn't really. He knows what it's like to be used for a weapon; he's not the only one out there. He's not self-centered enough to believe that. She's got a wariness in her eyes that was once in his own, sometimes still is, and holds herself as if she's still waiting for his next attack.

It's entirely reasonable that she would be, he knows that he would be were it him. Not any more mind you, but before, years ago. Before SHIELD.

There's a stalemate though, because he doesn't actually want to kill her, and she's wounded already. Maybe if they men hadn't been there, whoever they were, whatever they wanted, things would've been entirely different, if she wasn't wounded, if he hadn't left his perch, if he'd taken the shot he was meant to when he was meant to and ended it. Maybe it'd have met its mark, maybe they'd still be in this position, only they'd be aiming to kill.

But it wasn't like that, and maybe they didn't have to end it with only one of them walking out of this.

"You should get your side looked at." Where the blood was seeping into her dark uniform, the gash on her side deep enough that her body shifted to compensate for the pain. She barely moved in response, a quick glance down before meeting his eyes again. "I know someone, if you want." Because Phil could easily patch it up, Phil had patched up more than Clint's fair share of bumps and bruises. She muttered something at him, something Clint half recognized as Russian, but his Russian wasn't all that great, so he didn't quite catch it.

The battle of wills carried on, and Clint didn't offer anything else to say -it wasn't like he couldn't just chatter away, but with this one, he doubted that'd be all that helpful really. Until her stance relaxed just a little.

"Where?"

"The Marriot, attached to the airport. We leave in the morning." Because it wasn't meant to take long, in and out and done. But then, Clint never really was that great at the simple things.

"Who?"

"Agent Coulson," she tensed at the mention of 'agent', "my handler."

"You?"

"You can call me Hawkeye; I'll call you Black Widow. That way, nothing gets complicated." Really, he wasn't sure if this was at all what he should do. Invite a Soviet spy to his and Phil's hotel room, offer to help patch up the assassin he was sent to kill, but he was just hoping that Phil would know better what to do.

When Black Widow gave one nod of her head, red hair bouncing around her face, Clint decided that Phil was definitely the best option, leading his target away from the kill box and towards the hotel.

God, Fury was going to kill him.

*


	7. Clint Barton; agent, friend, partner

Coulson gives him a hard stare when he shows up at the motel, fifteen minutes late and with a bleeding Black Widow by his elbow. She's barely been two feet away from him the entire journey back, even on the roof of the tram she was almost sitting on his hip. Clint reasons that she's probably doing it for proximity -she's the close range killer, he tends to act more from a distance. Phil's stare breaks when Clint smiles and holds up a bloody hand, the slash along the heel of his hand his own counter measure to get Phil to not start ranting the moment they got there.

Widow hadn't said anything when Clint did it.

She sits by the bureau, watching as Phil carefully and gently cleans and wraps Clint's hand. If Phil notices that the wound is undoubtedly self-inflicted and won't interfere with Clint's ability to use his bow, he doesn't say anything. Widow doesn't move until Clint's hand is bandaged and Phil's inspected the bruises that she caused on his arms and the slowly blossoming one on his jaw.

"Would you like me to tend your wound," because the only one that Widow seems at all concerned with is the slice along her side, "or would you rather do it yourself?" She spends a decent length of time just staring at Phil, not uttering a word or even blinking, and Clint wonders if she even breathes in those long moments. He's mostly impressed by her. A little in awe and wonder, she is impressive; she moves deadly and silent, there's a grace to her every action that Clint can only compare to a jungle cat. And even he'll admit she's startlingly pretty; the red hair, green eyes and near flawless, pale skin.

It's apparent that Widow would like to tend her own wound, the hesitance is nothing to do with her injury and everything to do with distrust and frustration, but Clint stays at the other end of the room when she finally peels the fabric from her side and nods to Phil, allowing him near her with gauze and antiseptic to clean and dress her wound.

Afterwards, with balls of cotton in the trashcan, covered in blood, Phil is in the middle of the room, directly between Widow and Clint, like he could mediate something. Clint's not sure what he'd be mediating, because as much as Clint would like to not kill this girl, he will if it comes down to stopping her attacking Phil in an unneeded assault while attempting to escape. 

"You can leave, if you want." Widow's eyes dart towards the door at Phil's statement, and even Clint is a little surprised, because if Widow walks, Clint's still a little unsure as to what happens to him. She doesn't move though, like she's weighing everything up in her head, working out the best strategy, the best move.

"They were yours, you know." Clint mutters, staying by the far wall and staying non-threatening, but he wasn't staying quiet. "Those men, some of them were professionals, some of them were _your_  organization." Clint knew very little about the KGB, he knew even less about Red Room trained operatives, other than they were deadly, spawned the Black Widow and were better taken out at a distance than up close. Clint occasionally read the files he was given. "Your own organization wanted to kill you."

He doesn't add that they might've succeeded if he hadn't acted the way he did. The look that Phil gives him tells him that he's still got that to deal with too.

"They were a branch, not my group." She looks over at Clint, assessing and harsh, but it's not the first time that Clint's been under a microscope, so he just stands there, stares back without flinching, without blinking, without moving, and waits her out. "I--" The hesitance is there again, the frustration seeping out with exhaustion and Clint can recognize defeat in a slump of the shoulders. "I don't have-- there's nowhere to go."

Her organization, a branch of whoever she works for, has people gunning for her. Likely, the bloody mess that Hawkeye and Black Widow left behind will be a minimal deterrent for a while, but only for a while. They'll come back at her, harder and faster than ever, and she clearly doesn't want to die, she wouldn't have fought as hard if that were the case. Clint can understand that.

"What's your name?" Clint goes quiet again, letting Phil handle things, because he has to face it, Phil's just better at that type of thing. It takes a length of time, the silence drawing out, since Phil doesn't seem willing to continue without an answer, and eventually, she relents.

"Natasha." Clint isn't sure if it's a lie that she's trying to make them believe, or if she's trying to make herself believe, but Phil accepts it so Clint does as well. "Natasha Romanova." Her accent lilts over her annunciation, Clint memorizes the correct way to pronounce her name instantly but still remains quiet in the back of the room.

"I'm Agent Coulson of SHIELD, and if you would like, there is somewhere for you to go." They'd take her on, just like they did with him. It's clear that she's an asset, really, she'd be better to them alive instead of dead. They'd de-programmed Clint, they could do it to Natasha surely, then they'd have the Black Widow as their agent rather than enemy and the Red Room wouldn't.

They leave in the morning, no one having slept; Natasha doesn't trust them to sleep around them, Clint's too wired for sleep and Coulson has too much to organize for Natasha to leave with them. When they land on American soil, Natasha almost drops, but Clint makes a point of catching her with his shoulders, subtle and mostly unseen, just allowing her to rest against him for a moment before she gets herself back under control.

Seeing the momentary pass of relief on her face, the spark of tiredness in her eyes, Clint can't regret not taking the shot, regardless of what it means.

*

No one is all that pleased, Clint is sure the only reason Phil is supporting this is because it shows Clint hasn't slipped all the way back. He's not blindly following orders, he's not tallying up bodies like it's nothing, he understands it better now, he knows what he's doing, why he's doing it, he doesn't want to be just another weapon. And Natasha, well, she could be an asset, just like him, she just needs the direction, like him. She's older than he is, he finds that out while they're questioning her and starting the de-programming. Natasha takes the Americanized Romanoff as a last name; she's entered into the SHIELD program, pending her evaluations. She's a year and five months older than Clint, she's been in the Red Room since she was seven, she's just turned twelve.

It's a lot to work through.

Clint doesn't see her again until she's been through the system, until the retraining and evaluations are all complete, although Coulson has been keeping tabs on things. Clint's been grounded pending his own assessment. He disobeyed a direct order, and Phil's been trying to put that off and put it off, but the day Natasha is cleared, there's no more reasons for Phil to stall the evaluation.

Fury is the one that runs it, which is unusual, because it's supposed to be Maria and one of the shrinks.

"You were given a direct order, Agent." Clint just nods once, sitting in the chair in front of Fury. "You opted to ignore that directive and assisted a SHIELD enemy in defeating another kill squad." Clint had known that the men were there to kill Black Widow; there was no reason for there to be that many unless it was a hit squad. But assassins weren't exactly easy to kill. "And then you led her right back to our house."

"Brought her."

"Excuse me?" Clint doesn't like the wording there, the fact that he _led_  her anywhere. He didn't. It wasn't a careless mistake turned into something that was helpful. He hadn't _led_  Natasha to his and Phil's hotel by accident, hadn't  _led_  her to Phil like he was some rookie who didn't clear his tail. He had _brought_  her there.

"I brought her to our house. I invited her, gave her the chance to clean up, to let Agent Coulson evaluate and decide if I was right." Clint knew he'd been right, the way Widow fought, the drive, even when she was losing strength, she still struck out at him, defending herself.

"Right about what, Agent Barton?"

"That she'd make an asset of SHIELD, she'd be better to us alive than dead." She was just like him, in a lot of ways, he could already see it. If they'd given him the chance, why not Natasha?

Fury doesn't ask any more questions, but Phil's expression is pinched and unsure when he leaves the room. He knows it was the quickest evaluation ever. Natasha's been released into the Helicarrier proper. She's officially a training agent of SHIELD. Coulson is to be her handler. It means they need to remain on base that night, that Clint gets his barrack instead of his bedroom and Phil works the night in his office.

Clint can't fight off the trepidation that's started in his gut. They think he made a mistake, they're keeping Natasha, but they think he messed up, that it was a mistake and _they_  are managing to salvage it. He doesn't know how to explain that it's not the case. They might not kill agents that make mistakes here, they might not 'retire' they're operatives on a permanent basis, but they sure as hell don't allow them out in the field.

The barrack room is suddenly too tight and too oppressive and too much like the cell he used to call a room back when he was with Swordsman. He should've known better really, than to think they'd understand without him saying anything, it wasn't like he didn't screw up sometimes, but never like that. He'd never fuck it up that bad.

It's simple enough to get the grate off the ceiling, open out the ventilation shaft and scurry up and into it. He takes his scratchy blanket and his pillow with him, because he's not going to sleep in the barrack tonight, but he is tired and he knows where he will sleep. There's a junction near the cross hatch for the third engine, it's two levels down from where his barrack room is, near the loading bay. There's the gentle hum of the engines through the metal of the shaft and the constant noise from the loading bay and the heat of the machinery keeps Clint from shivering. It's easy enough to curl up in a corner and sleep there in a tight nest of his blanket.

Maybe he'll figure out how to explain it to Phil in the morning.

He doesn't get to the morning though, because there's a noise along the shaft and Clint's eyes are open in a second. He's always been a light sleeper, the smallest of noises waking him, at least noises that don't belong. The loading bay and the engine are at home here, but the bang of a foot against the side of the shaft and the quiet curse, those are not.

Before he even sees her, he knows its Natasha. No one else at SHIELD would fit in the vents, and so far, he hasn't heard any of them slip into Russian when frustrated and cursing. So he just waits, still curled into his nest, watching where she's about to round the corner. When she does, her green eyes focus on his, laser intense and focused. She shuffles along slowly, like he's the skittish cat and she's trying not to startle him.

"You were not in your room." She stays just about two feet away from him, hunched on her knees with her elbows in front. It's a good enough stance to still be able to attack or defend from, which is probably why she made the noise coming through the shafts; it's not good for maneuverability. He might need to show her a better method.

"Couldn't sleep." He couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop himself from partially freaking out over the fact that the people who gave him that shot, gave him that second chance to actually be something, they thought he'd screwed it all up when he didn't kill Natasha.

"Agent Coulson was worried." Clint couldn't figure out why Phil would look in on him right then, unless someone was supposed to monitor his position, unless they had _him_  under watch. "He requested I locate you," but then why send Natasha after him if that were the case? "He specifically indicated that I would locate you in here."

Clint had a habit of finding small, cramped spaces to curl up in. Usually they were in ventilation systems, occasionally just high perches that he could slot himself into and just be for a while. He liked dark corners and tight spaces and nests. The attic of his and Phil's house was one of his new favourite places.

"Why?" But they shouldn't be looking for him, because he wasn't told that he was under house arrest, that he wasn't allowed to move around until they'd cleared him, that he was perceived as a threat. No one had said he was grounded.

"He was worried." Natasha gave what he had to assume was meant to be a shrug. He didn't answer, just watched her carefully. Natasha met his gaze and didn't look away; it wasn't a staring contest, just a careful evaluation of each other. Eventually, Natasha must've decided something, as she slowly let her knees straighten; lying out on her stomach with her head cradled in her hands and held up on her elbows. "Why here?"

"It's comfortable." In a sense it was, there was nowhere that anyone could surprise Clint from, nowhere that he could be snuck up on. It was warm enough that it never got unbearably cold, the vibrations were soothing and the noise often gave him some kind of peace. He had alternative places if he didn't want to be found, if he wanted silence, or darkness, or cold. He had numerous places all through the vents for that.

"You're Clint."

"You're Natasha." She ducked her head a little, but nodded.

"I was Natalia. But yes, I am Natasha, now." Clint could understand that, the name changes, he'd had a few himself from time to time, but usually always Clint as a first name. It's hard to explain to a child why he needs a new name in a new town. "They wish to train me." Clint just nodded because he knew that. "You were trained here?"

"Yeah, eventually." And that's when Clint tells Natasha about the circus, about Swordsman and Trick Shot and all the people he killed before he was six. He tells her about his first training and his first 'master' and all the things that he's never actually told Phil. He told her about after, about Phil and SHIELD, about Maria and Nick and the family that they'd forged through the aftermath. About fighting for something, about having a cause, people to trust and follow. It's almost like a fairy tale, like the books that they'd read in elementary school, about happily ever after. But Clint knows there's no such thing, just for now, and maybe Natasha deserves a little bit of that.

They work their way out of the vents sometime around noon, sharing secrets and stories.

Phil didn't seem overly pleased, but didn't comment when Clint just shrugged and Natasha stood close to his side, clearly at ease. It was the first step; Clint knew that, she was opening, even if it was just to him so far. They had each other’s secrets; there was nothing more powerful than that.

*

Natasha's preliminary training takes three weeks. She's already adept at just about everything, although her tendency to work without input seemingly puts halts on her advancement at first. Two weeks later, they're moving house again, this time to a slightly bigger house and one where Phil couldn't put all his Captain America toys out on display, because that turned into Natasha's room.

"They're not toys." Phil's really serious about his collection, he's been at it for years, Clint fully understands the extent of Phil's hero worship really. But teasing Phil about it never really gets old anyway.

Natasha is terrible at social situations; Clint feels a little bad for her. They enroll her in school with Clint as his cousin, she's Phil's niece who just lost her dad so the teachers tend to mostly give her leeway with responses and don't seem to mind that she's mostly keeping to herself. Clint makes a point of keeping close to her, making sure that he's the buffer against anyone else around them. Everyone gets nosy, it's natural, and Clint manages to talk Natasha down from kicking about five people’s asses in the space of one week. Her lack of patience with them doesn't really surprise him.

"They're stupid."

"Yes, they are, and they ask dumb questions, but you can't break their arms because then you get sent to the principal and Phil gets called and people look too closely." So she backs off on almost maiming her classmates and Clint's social circle gets even smaller than it already was until really, it's just him and Natasha. He's okay with it though, because she's fun when she isn't being watched and they have enough in common that it's easy.

She goes active one month after her standard training is over. Phil's on mission with her and Clint's still not cleared from the mission in Russia, so he's sitting it out. He gets a babysitter agent, it's not even Maria, and Phil and Natasha are gone for the weekend.

It sucks.

Maria does come over the night that Phil and Natasha are due back. She makes dinner and it's just the two of them and Clint can't figure out how he's meant to act right then. He really didn't mean for this to happen, but if that's how it has to be, then he'll just learn to be okay with it.

"Where will I go?" He figures they'll at least get him into another orphanage, right? Or a foster home. SHIELD doesn’t seem the type to just cut him loose and let him fend for himself. He's pretty sure that Phil is going to hate moving again, but likely he'll need to, just to avoid questions being asked. Maybe Natasha'll make friends easier without him there as a safety net.

"What do you mean?" Maria must be playing dumb, or Fury hasn't read her in. But that seems unlikely, because Fury reads Maria and Phil in on just about everything. They're his lead agents, both of them are the left and right hand of SHIELD. Clint had used to think he was maybe an extension of that.

"I mean, have you picked a place? Or will I get to do that? I really don't want to go back to Iowa, but I guess it's maybe not too bad, if you were just sending me right back." He's barely touched his dinner, and it's not because he doesn't want to, because Maria makes awesome lasagna, but it's because he doesn't know if he could deal with that being how they knock him out. Dose his food and then...what? Just dump him somewhere.

"Clint, why would you be going anywhere?"

"Because you've got Natasha now. So, you don't need me." 

"Oh, sweetie." Maria shuffled closer, pushing her own food aside for a moment and resting a hand on Clint's shoulder carefully. "No one is being replaced. Natasha is being field tested to see about her compatibility with a team. We're integrating, not replacing." Maria rarely treats him like a child, Clint likes that about her, she's honest and upfront about just about everything.

"So why am I grounded?" They haven't fully debriefed him, they'd still need to have a final debrief so that they make sure he fully understands just how much he's _not_  allowed to mention anything. But there haven't been training sessions, no new missions, no evaluations. He's been on ice since he came back from Russia and his motives and abilities were questioned regarding the Black Widow.

"Only until Agent Romanoff is cleared. You work well together, Phil's said you bounce off each other like pin balls." Clint had sparred with Natasha twice while they were both Helicarrier bound, no one else seemed willing to spar with her; Clint wasn't sure if it was because she was the Black Widow, because she was still to be de-programmed or because she was twelve. They did work well together though; they actually flowed together seamlessly like Clint had never managed before. "We want you two to be partners."

Clint had never had a partner before. Clint was a secret. Most of SHIELD thought Hawkeye was a myth. But then, Natasha was like that. No one actually knew who she was; no one had eyes on Black Widow so it wasn't like they had her picture. She was just a young training cadet right then. Clint just stared at his plate, still not touching his food. They wanted him and Natasha to work together. Like a team, probably with Phil. That'd make them a team wouldn't it? Clint was so used to being just one, being expendable before SHIELD, being a tool and weapon. Replaceable. He hadn't figured that SHIELD had bigger ideas.

"No one is replacing you, little hawk." Maria gave a brief smile, stroking the back of his head before nudging him. "I need a partner in crime too much." It helped that Maria stuck around until Phil and Natasha got back, she watched a few movies with him, suffering through Disney because the HR personnel were trying to get him to do 'normal' kid stuff.

Phil and Maria shared one look and a nod when they finally got in and that was when Maria broke out the cake from the fridge. Clint was surprised, because usually nothing got into the fridge without him seeing it, but Maria was possibly the best at hiding shit, ever. The cake was just a plain circle, half purple, half red with black lettering over the top spelling out 'Team BlackHawk' with a lot of exclamation points. Natasha raised one elegant eyebrow and Clint just stared.

"This is a mile stone; it's like a promotion, okay. So just stop looking like that and eat your cake." Natasha has this smirk, it's what normal people would use if they were smiling, and Clint gets this almost smile that is the same. Maria and Phil are a little better adjusted than the two young assassins, so they just smile as normal while Maria cuts up the cake and Phil pours out soda.

Clint actually feels like he can relax, like it's not such a big deal anymore. They're growing, not replacing, and Natasha relaxes enough that she laughs when Maria ribs Phil about the Captain America trading cards again, even though Clint knows that Maria's managed to get him a limited edition render of the shield for his birthday this year.

And he had been willing to give up this, what he thinks is the closest he'll ever really get to a family, give it up if it meant Natasha got to have it. But it's even better if they get to share it. Really. So it works out pretty sweet for both of them.

*


	8. Clint Barton; compromised

The entire arrangement works out fantastically. There are bumps, of course there are bumps, but things smooth out fairly quickly. Natasha warms up, slowly but surely. She starts to trust Phil more, converses more smoothly, although she's still somewhat socially awkward, Clint's pretty sure that's a choice rather than any kind of failing on her personality. She's got the same sense of humour that he does, something that occasionally appears to cause Phil serious headaches, but it keeps them close.

Clint is the only person who gets to call her Nat, or Tash, or Tasha. During nightmares, when Natasha just needs someone else around, he'll get away with Natalia, but only then, because that's not who she is anymore, and it's not something she's willing to discuss. Clint's nightmares aren't the same, Clint's nightmares usually mean he ends up under his bed and Natasha is so in tune with them that he finds her sitting on his mattress in the morning, just waiting for him to come out of it.

They tend not to tell Phil about the nights they don't sleep because the demons are too close to the surface.

Several years are just a blur of activity; between school, which it is insisted that they still maintain, working for SHIELD and the 'normal' life that Phil attempts to keep up with them, neither Natasha nor Clint really have all that much time to slow down. They see most of the world, although a lot of it is at night, through a scope for him and in buildings for Natasha. Budapest is a sticking point with both of them; no bullets, no arrows, no comms and more than twenty assailants.

Clint almost loses his kidney, Natasha almost loses her leg. Phil nearly has a heart attack.

After Budapest, Natasha wraps herself around Clint for a week, barely leaving him, even when he's sure she's in pain from her shattered knee cap. They'll need to do intense physio with her for the injury, but Clint's pretty sure she's half way back to the Red Room in her head, so he doesn't comment about her sharing his bed and his space for as long as she needs.

By the time Clint joins Natasha at high school they've both recovered from Budapest, choose to never mention it again, and have a stack of missions allotted to their files; Agents #009382 and #009404 are a complete mystery to all members of SHIELD below Eyes Only, but their files are still accounted for, even if they are mostly blacked out. They've been a three man team for just over five years and they are already the best team that SHIELD had ever produced.

It's a bid to balance everything out, to find that place where Clint and Natasha can be their teenage selves, but that they can still nurture the part of themselves that survives, the part of them that isn't a normal teenager.

Natasha finds ballet. She's told Clint that she was made to believe she was a child prodigy, that she was a ballet start at eight-years-old, that she was the star of a school. Her body learns the actions easily, the way her mind already knows them, how she flows into the art like she really was made for it. Phil is at every recital, Natasha practically lights up every time she sees them in the crowd. It gives her a little bit of 'normal', gives her routine and friends that aren't Clint, girls her age that she gets along with. It's where Natasha manages to slip into 'teenage girl' for a while.

Clint eventually gets into soccer. He doesn't mind it as much anymore, and Debbie, awesome Debbie from elementary school, she's there too. Clint seems to find it much easier to be friends with girls than with boys. Phil says it's because he's more mature than the boys in his class, and girls mature faster than boys, so he's on level with his own maturity. Clint's pretty sure it's because boys are total idiots, just like Natasha says.

Then there's the usual. Clint and Natasha both just shed the unsure, teenage skin when they suit up. Phil has them both kitted out; Natasha gets newly designed wrist weapons that Clint doesn't really understand fully, but Natasha loves. They've got uniforms that Clint knows Maria and Phil designed for safety and their abilities. It's like neither of them are willing to let one detail slip by.

Maria is there for Natasha's sixteenth birthday, a small party in the back yard held for Natasha with her ballet friends and Debbie invited along, because Natasha is aware that Debbie idolizes Natasha. Jasper and Fury show up as well and Clint has to spend some time sitting with Sitwell to help his neck untense from the taser shot that Natasha got in very covertly when he produced a My Little Pony for Natasha.

"Is Debbie your girlfriend?" After the party, Natasha locks them both up in her room; the pair of them huddled on her bed. Clint just shakes his head, because he doesn't actually know where Natasha's going. He's already had 'the talk' from Phil after he tried to explain that Clint would be more than okay if Phil wanted to start dating someone, and then he'd gotten another one from Maria when she thought he'd been nursing a crush on her.

"Why?" Apparently, Natasha's friends talk about boys a lot. Natasha doesn't get the big deal, but she's never really had a boyfriend, she's never really kissed anyone, she's not sure if she should be doing things like this. "So, why not try it? I mean, you're really popular and stuff." Which she was, even when Natasha barely gave anyone the time of day, people at school revered her.

"I...I wanted to ask," Natasha shuffled closer, smiling shyly at him. "I don't trust anyone, not like I trust you." Clint understands that, because he doesn't trust anyone like he trusts Natasha either. Phil is a different thing; Clint trusts Phil not to hurt him, not to abandon him, to be there and to protect both of them. Clint trusts Natasha with his secrets, with his demons, with all the things he hides from other people.

It's a little awkward; Clint had no idea what to do, so he just lets Natasha take point. She's always been good at taking point and Clint is fairly comfortable with following her lead. Her lips are soft, mostly gentle against his and Clint has to lean in closer, tilting his head to the side to make it easier. It's nice, in that weird way that feels different, but not bad. 

There's an ease to it, eventually, so Clint spends the night in Natasha's bed, alternating between sharing more secrets, some dreams, some memories, and sharing soft kisses. Phil doesn't seem surprised that Clint was with Natasha all night, and questions aren't asked, but he knows already that even if he does spend another night with Natasha, at some point, it won't be in that kind of way.

*

"Why do you get to go?"

"We've been over this," Nat smirks at him, curling another strand of her hair around the hot rod, "you just don't have the figure for it." Sometimes, they go on their own assignments, sometimes they split up for small time jobs. Clint is regularly used for observation, he's the best there is for details, Natasha is good for infiltration, she blends in better than most and has a way to just own the role.

"You're hilarious." He knows why Natasha is great for this, she has the looks and the skill and she's read up on the whole thing. She just needs to make sure Stark doesn't implode before Fury has a chance to mobilize his pet project. Despite the fact that Stark is already fairly unstable. "Do you know why Phil doesn't like him?"

"Because he's an egotistical ass?" They both knew that Phil had certain issues with Tony Stark, probably Stark's personality, if the press conferences were anything to go by, but Phil never mentioned it. "Listen, it'll be over before you even notice that we're gone. It's not exactly some glamorous extended operation or anything."

"You're going to L.A. With Phil. While I stay here and go to school. I'm pretty sure I'm drawing the short straw here." Nat just smirked at him sealing up her suitcase and squeezing his cheeks.

"Don't be too cruel to Jasper, okay? I'll call when we hit the ground, milaya moya." Clint just nodded his head, still slightly put out that Phil and Natasha were going to Malibu of all places to babysit an arrogant, billionaire, technological genius while he had geography class to look forward to.

Of course, convincing Jasper Sitwell that yes, he is totally allow to get to school via the rooftops of the neighborhood houses and he is totally okay to stay up playing video games is fun too. Apparently, Jasper half expected Clint to try and weasel into a few parties or something while Phil was out of the state, but Clint wasn't exactly the party kind.

"Natasha got me drunk on Russian vodka when I was fourteen," Clint shares, half way through the second Matrix movie and five days through Natasha and Phil's assignment, "I swore to Phil that I wouldn't even look at alcohol again until I was legal, because rainbow puke and hangovers are hell when you've got a day of target watching to look forward to." Clint didn't need any more help obtaining migraines.

Fury turns up on day six, handing Clint a mission folder and telling him he's wheels up in forty heading off to New Mexico. He's not sure what's in New Mexico, but fair enough. It turns out that a really big hammer is in New Mexico.

"What does it do?" It seems to be the question that everyone is asking and no one has the answer to. Which is great, because Clint is just sitting around, watching the really big hammer and doing a whole lot of nothing.

"Bet it's more fun in Malibu right now." Clint is aware that it's not, Clint is aware that Natasha is less enamored with Tony Stark than Phil is and Clint really wants to know what's so horrible about the guy that they both can't stand him. 

It turns out that the hammer does a great deal of things, and Clint is officially in awe of the big dude that tosses it around. "Are you going to call this?" He's in his perch, arrow nocked and ready, waiting for Phil's signal to take the shot, while the big guy obliterates anyone that comes near him. "Oh, you better call it, Coulson. I'm starting to root for this guy." In the end, Coulson doesn't call it and Clint stands down. But the hammer, and the blonde guy, are gone, so it's a half wasted mission.

"Natasha's back in New York, we're heading home."

Clint totally prefers it when the three of them are working as a team.

*

When they get to Clint's sixteenth birthday, he can tell there's something off. Not in a big way, but Phil's super distracted. Clint's not the 'throw me a party' type, and he's barely got friends outside of Natasha and Debbie, so he manages to get away with just an afternoon out. Him, Natasha and Debbie go out to the movies, then Maria and Phil take them for a late lunch, there is cake and singing and Clint just deals with that, because it's what it takes to keep Maria and Phil content.

Clint's never really celebrated his birthday, only eight of the ten he's had with Phil have been acknowledged. He didn't exactly have a good track record before Phil.

But even while Phil is clearly putting in the effort, making things as plain as possible while still celebrating, Clint can tell there's something else going on. He doesn't ask until they've dropped Debbie at home and it's just the three of them again, and when he does, Phil tenses up.

"They've um, they've found Captain America." As far as distractions go, it's a pretty big deal.

"What's Phil's obsession with this guy all about?" Nat's never really got the whole collectables thing, then again Clint's not entirely sure what it's all about either, but it's Phil's thing, so it's just that. A thing.

"He's got all the comics, and he grew up with the guy as his hero." Nat and Clint watch from through the glass, observing as doctors mill around the unconscious form of America's fallen hero. "I guess it's just something normal people do." Except Natasha had her knife collection, and Clint's arrows weren't too far off the same thing. Maybe they just collected in a different sense than this.

"I'm bored," they'd been watching the doctors for ten minutes, Phil and Fury were discussing something inside and neither of them were all that interested in it. "Spar with me?" Over the course of three weeks, Natasha and Clint spent hours upon hours in the training gym, the one that was 'closed for renovations' which Fury was steadily outfitting for what was one day going to be an Avengers training section. Something for team building, something for running exercises and assault courses. Natasha and Clint already knew the place backwards and forwards, the assault course being made better and more intricate based on their suggestions.

Clint was sure that he and Natasha knew each other's fighting style backwards and forwards by the time Phil finally moved on from watching his hero lie in a bed and sleep. Which as far as superheroes went, was pretty damn boring.

Then it just got even more boring.

"What do you mean 'observe and monitor'? What the hell did I do?" There are reasons why Clint doesn't like being still, there are reasons why Clint isn't all that fond of being cut off from Nat and Phil, there are numerous reasons why sitting around in an underground base, watching science people do stupid little tests on a glowing cube is totally not something he wants to do. "Is this about the thing with the staple gun? Because seriously, he was fine and no one got maimed."

"What thing with the staple gun?" So apparently Sitwell hadn't spilled the beans and complained.

"What thing? Nothing, who mentioned a staple gun?"

"You did."

"No, I didn't. You're the one talking about staple guns. What is wrong with you?"

"I didn't even...you brought it up, you said-"

"Clint, that's enough." Clint just smirks as Phil rubs his forehead and Agent Howell looks between Clint and Phil, as if she's trying to figure something out. "Let's just get back to the assignment."

The assignment is dumb; the assignment is babysitting some scientists while they figure out what's going on with this tesseract thing. Clint hates New Mexico, it's boring and nothing really changes. Even less so when he's stuck underground in the research facility. They want him to stand by a post, want him to overlook Dr Selvig and his team. Clint gets bored two nights into it and makes a nest from the best vantage point and starts to hone his ability to remain unmoving for long periods of time. He can watch absolutely everything, see the coming and the going, what the scientists are doing, even if he doesn't understand what they're up to, and he can hear what they're talking about.

It's easy to pick up that the tesseract is all about energy; the premise is that they can harness the energy that the cube releases, that they'll be able to work out the secrets or whatever and turn the cube into some kind of power device. But there's also the fact that they think it's a door, that the energy comes from the other side of wherever the tesseract leads. Clint can't believe that Captain America spent more than fifty years in the ocean, frozen solid, all for this thing.

Clint's been watching it for two weeks when things start to glitch, unusual readings, unexplained activity, surges of power. There's no way to gauge what's happening, no explanation for why it's suddenly happening and Selvig has no clue how to change it or fix it. Clint calls Phil and Phil calls Fury and they both fly out to oversee the evacuation of the base pending evaluation of the cube and what's happening.

"No one's been out of place; no one has done anything, brought in anything, taken anything. It's nothing something that happened on our end." Fury gives him a look, one that comes with an eyebrow raise that might mean Fury wants Clint to continue, or one that might mean that Fury just bit his own cheek.

"Our side?" Apparently it's the former.

"Well, it's a door, right? Doors open both ways." That's when he gets another one of Fury's looks, one that Clint is very used to because it's the one that he practically cultivated himself. Fury doesn't get to say whatever it is he preparing to say, the tesseract emitting a power surge far greater than any others before a blast rocks the entire underground area, tossing Clint, Selvig and Fury several feet backwards.

Clint's the first to his feet, hand automatically going for his side arm. He's stopped with a strong grip to his wrist, sees strong features and sharp green eyes before everything starts to fade.

"You have heart." His body chills, like ice trailing through his blood before his vision narrows to nothing but a blue haze and his awareness disappears entirely.

*


	9. Natasha Romanova; friend, sister, Widow

Solo assignments were usually a thing of the past, but Natasha still got that steady thrum when she was handed one. She genuinely loved Clint, and Phil. Trusted them like she trusted no one. And working with them was a thrill on its own, gauging reactions and analyzing plans and anticipating Clint's next shot. She enjoyed it, naturally she did.

But solo assignments were a test.

They were a test to prove she hadn't lost her edge, to show she was still independent, she could still walk away, she had the door to throw herself out of and things would work out. Because she was still the Black Widow, she was still Natasha Romanova, not SHIELD Agent #009404, not Nat, not Tash, not Tasha. She was still herself; she was still the assassin she was bred to be.

And sometimes she still hated that, how no matter where she went, no matter how far she came, it still boiled down to being the most comfortable with a gun in her hand. Ballet invigorated her, school interested her, friends were somewhat of a challenge and none compared to when she was on site, Phil's voice in her ear and Clint on a perch watching her back with his bow and quiver steady.

Even tied to a chair, her face stinging and teetering on the edge of a forty foot drop, Natasha was calm and collected and in her element. At least until Luchkov is handed a cell phone and looks towards her like he's just been told her true age. She's handed the phone and Natasha is ready to bitch out her handler like she's never done before.

"What are you doing? I'm _working_." They never pull her off solo; they never interfere with her missions. She doesn't take comms so that they can't second guess her, so that they don't interrupt. Coulson is a great handler, and on team missions she's more than happy to have him direct her, but not here, not on _her_  mission. "This idiot is giving me everything."

"Barton's been compromised." It's like time stops. It's like she's just been dropped in the ocean with weights on her feet and Natasha doesn't know how to deal with that heart wrenching emotion. Natasha doesn't do emotion; she can't, not when it can destroy everything.

"Let me put you on hold." Luchkov takes back the cell phone, just as Natasha lashes out. She uses the fear and the worry and the concern to just burn; taking the three of them out in under a minute is likely a best record for something, but Natasha's mind hasn't caught up just yet and she needs to be briefed on the plan to get Clint back. Compromised isn't the same as dead, it's not the same as lost, it's fixable. Everything with Clint is fixable.

So she's off to Calcutta to find a Hulk and bring him home. Natasha would rather deal with Tony at this rate, even though she can barely tolerate being in the same room as him for extended periods of time. It's difficult, convincing someone who knows that SHIELD doesn't operate above board that everything is serious, that no one is interested in the Hulk right then, even though Natasha knows that Fury half wants Banner in on this initiative thing.

"We need your help; you're the leading expert in gamma radiation." Banner half smirks at her, although the way he ducks his head, the slight blush that clearly happens from the praise offered; it makes it look more shy than anything else.

"I'm the only expert in gamma radiation." Be that as it may, he's the best person for the job, which is likely why Phil sent Natasha to convince him, Fury must be on Captain Rogers and Coulson was taking Stark. Natasha liked Pepper, she was sweet and somewhat mothering, even when threatened by other females, so she didn't overly grudge Phil his assignment, although she hoped Pepper came in with Phil.

"Please," Natasha isn't used to asking nicely, and she's got an entire SHIELD team outside waiting, ready to take the Hulk by force if needed, but she'd rather get Dr Banner on the plane instead, "we need your help, you might be the only person who can do this."

Natasha doesn't want to resort to begging, although for Clint she would; barter with him, beg him for help, plead until he felt sorry for her and came on board. In the end she doesn't have to. Banner gets on the plane and they make way for the carrier, currently sitting on the ocean bed for everyone to arrive before Fury brings it up and cloaks it.

Checking on the status of the search for Clint. Coulson nods her out of the main station, leaving Captain America and Dr Banner to talk about whatever they want to talk about. Phil looks just as worried as she feels, but she knows they have to keep it on the minimum right then. They couldn't let Clint's status affect them; else everything would just fall apart.

"I've discussed it with Fury, once we get a hit, you'll be accompanying Captain America out. You might have the best shot of getting Agent Barton back without excessive force." Natasha gives a single nod, heading to suit up; since she wants to be ready to go the minute they have the information. She's not sure if they really know what's happened to Clint, from what she's heard from the open comms, Clint wasn't in control of himself, and if its mind control like she knows mind control can be, Natasha isn't sure there's anything that can bring Clint back.

*

They find Loki in Stuttgart, but no Barton. Natasha doesn't like the addition of _another_ God in their ranks, but Thor seems apologetic to Loki's actions, even if he is still torn. Natasha can understand it, maybe, a little. Clint is practically her brother, they're both adopted in the sense of it, and she would defend him against anything that comes up. He's already aided Loki in some way, they can figure that out themselves, but they don't know how yet.

Loki is held in the tank, the tank that was designed to hold the Hulk should they ever need it, while Fury tries to get some information out of him. Captain Rogers, Dr Banner, herself and Thor wait by the conference table on the bridge. Natasha needs to know what they're doing next, she needs to be involved, to help locate and bring back Clint. She doesn't trust these people not to do something stupid, not to forget that he's actually one of theirs, that he is in no way expendable.

Tony saunters in with Phil, Phil almost smiling at something Tony's saying and maybe, just maybe, Phil's warming up to the egocentric nutcase. Natasha will admit, at least to herself, that he has his moments. Like the vintage clock that was modeled to look like Captain America's shield that Tony sent for Phil's birthday. Apparently he's not being insufferable right now either. It's almost comical actually, watching Tony introduce himself to the others and Natasha is hit with a pang because Clint will _like_  Tony. It's almost a given, for all that he irritates Phil and Natasha; Clint will find it amusing and likely endearing. Then again, Tony does have the emotional maturity of a nineteen-year-old, so he's almost on par with Clint.

Fury tries to explain things, and Phil stands just beside Natasha's shoulder, enough that she's comforted by his presence, enough that she doesn't want to claw out of her skin, enough that she's not yelling at them to just find Clint already.

When Dr Banner and Stark go off to be science like, Phil goes to do whatever he needs to do, Natasha hovers around the screens, watching the displays before venturing off to the bowels of the helicarrier. There's only one person who has answers to this, and even as she slowly makes her way there, she feels the blood in her veins turn cold. It may be the only way to get answers, but these may not be answers that she wants to get. 

The whole area is imposing on its own, designed to hold a monster that no one else could contain, not even Dr Banner and his tight control. There's nothing down here that really _scares_  Natasha, it's been such a long time since she was frightened by anything, but certain things down here unnerve her. Like the God sitting in the chamber, almost smug in his capture. 

"I had wondered who would be sent," Natasha steps out of the shadows, taking sure steps until she stops in front of the glass. "I hadn't expected you so soon, Black Widow." She doesn't start, it's not surprising that he knows her name, her code, it doesn't worry her. "I had believed that you would come later, after whatever torture Fury can concoct, you would be sent in, to balm my troubled soul and tempt out my co-operation."

"What are your intentions with Agent Barton?" The question sparks a smirk from Loki, even though Natasha knows that Fury, Hill and Coulson will be watching, they'll have been notified that Natasha was here. She doesn't bother with the predictable stream of questioning; what is your plan, why are you doing this, where is the cube. They won't get anything that way. And right then, Natasha doesn't care.

"Agent Barton. The world is on the brink of destruction and you come to barter for one life? Is this love, Black Widow?" It is, in a sense, Natasha has loved Clint since the first time they spoke in the air vents, since the first time someone confided in her, since he saw her and not the assassin. In a way, Natasha has loved Clint since that night in Russia, when he saved her life and then offered her a new one.

"Love is for children." But Natasha is no in love with Clint, they're not like that. They're not holding hands and stealing glances, they're not long walks on the beach and sunset watching from rooftops; they're not whispered confessions and tentative kisses. They're cleaning out wounds, they're patching up breaks and supported each other out of war zones, they're sharing secrets and demons, chasing away the nightmares with someone who understands the scope of things. They may be children, and they may love each other, but it's an entirely different set of rules for them.

"Tell me, Widow, why do you barter for one life when so many hang in the balance?"

"I owe him a debt." Hawkeye saved Black Widow's life that night, and then again when he made the call to take her in, alive rather than dead. Hawkeye saved her life ten times over by the time she first repaid the favour, catching a knife meant for Clint's back. They'd saved each other numerous times, in several different ways, but Natasha still had a debt to repay, and she wasn't about to stop trying. Loki waits for the story; Natasha gives him the cliff notes. "For a time I was indiscriminate about who I took jobs for, I grew a name for myself, I fostered enemies. SHIELD issued a kill order, Agent Barton made a different call."

"The opera house," Loki nods his head, clearly having this information already, "did you know he thought you as beautiful as you were deadly?" She did, Clint saw beauty in strange places, he saw it where most people saw something strange, something odd. Natasha just attributed it to being with the circus as long as he was and didn't question it. Clint had once stared at her like she was a work of art, directly after she'd destroyed a group of thugs and was almost covered in blood. She'd called him warped and they'd walked away, but Natasha was always grateful that Clint didn't see her as a monster. "I haven't decided yet if he'll be the one to kill you, to tear you apart in every way he knows you fear, or if his demise will be the last thing you see." The worrying thing is, she can already see how it would happen, how they could end. She knew that they could go at any time, doing what they did, but she never believed it would be on opposite ends of the battlefield.

"You're a monster." Even as he gets enraged, bangs against the glass and spits words at her, aiming his sharp tongue for all the chinks in her armour, Natasha is trying to regain her control, to push the thoughts of Clint and her and death out of her mind. She can't let that cloud her judgment, can't let it seep into her pores and dictate her actions. "So, that's your plan? The Hulk." Loki doesn't seem to understand how he could've given it away, considering Natasha was barely listening to his insane ranting. She radios Fury, turns away from Loki and heads out of the bay.

"Oh, and thank you for your co-operation." Little bits of Clint, little influences he's put upon her, the snark, the sarcasm, she clings to those like a lifeline, because she has to believe that she can save him, that she can save them both from this.

Otherwise, what's the point?

*

The lab that's set aside for Dr Banner isn't exactly large, it's made even smaller by the inclusion of a God, a super soldier, two science brains, two SHIELD agents and then Natasha as she enters. She wishes she could be surprised at the arguing, but realistically, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Apparently the SHIELD plan for the tesseract hadn't been as cut and dry as power harnessing and Stark, Rogers and Banner have found this out.

Stark's ego clashes with Roger's ethics, Banner's paranoia and Fury's secrecy battle it out while Thor seems a little lost and Coulson is trying to get them all under control.

"Are you children finished?" They can't afford to be fighting among themselves, and as frustrating as SHIELDs secrets can get, Natasha doesn't care how they feel about the lies Fury might've told. "We still had no idea what Loki's plan was, or is, this isn't the time." They can complain about the weapons later, they can bitch at each other after this is over. "Let's just focus on one problem at a time."

"Agent Romanoff, you'll be coordinating with Agent Hill for recon."

"No." Natasha has never disobeyed a direct order before; she's never even bent them a little, never disagreed. Clint was the one that pushed at orders, he needled and twisted, he kept the objective, but anything unspecific he managed to work around.

"No?" Fury seems as shocked as Coulson.

"No, I will not sit this one out."

"You're too close."

"They're not close enough." She doesn't care what people think, about her and Clint, about Widow and Hawk; they're too close, too co-dependent, too involved. He's the only person she trusts more than herself, and she's the only person he'll open up to completely. "If you expect me to sit on the bridge while they go out there and deal with this, you've been smoking something." The snort from Tony is enough to draw Fury's attention away from Natasha for a moment, but Coulson just shakes his head.

"This is not a sanctioned mission, this is not your assignment," Coulson is trying to reason with her, and Natasha feels for him, she does. Clint's like a son to him, she's like a daughter in many ways, and she knows he hates when they're sent out without him as back up. Not knowing Clint's condition and situation is probably just as horrible for him as it is for her.

"With all due respect, sir," her tone of voice is borrowed completely from Clint, one that is utterly lacking in any respect at all and shows it very clearly.

"No, Natasha, there is no arguing here. You're not going." It's evident that they've just gotten the attention of everyone in the room. Usually, Natasha would be embarrassed by the scene, but she's not giving up on this.

"I'm more capable than any of them, this is my job."

"No, it's not. Your job is espionage and recon, not full scale war. You're a spy, not a soldier." 

"Um, I don't mean to butt in," Tony raises his hand, somewhat awkward looking like he really just wants to run from the room screaming like a girl, and Natasha would believe that, "but I've seen her work. Or, more, Happy has seen her work, and I'd say she's a bit more than just a 'spy'." Natasha remembers that fondly, a small smile on her face, Hammer's guards, Happy being her back up that one time, she remembers because Pepper had chided her for changing in the car afterwards.

"Thank you for that sparkling input, Mr Stark, but we are not sending a seventeen-year-old into a war zone." At that moment, right then, Natasha hates him. Coulson at least looks apologetic, but he doesn't take it back, he doesn't stand down, even as the men in the room stare at her.

"Seventeen?" Tony looks just a little scared.

"I'll be eighteen in four months." Like it matters than at all, like any of it really matters.

"I feel just a little bit dirty right now." Despite everything, despite how she feels and what's happening around her, Natasha breaks a small smile at the way Tony edges backwards and around the desk, standing closer to Bruce and further from Coulson.

"Agent Coulson is right; you shouldn't be involved in this." The smile is gone and a glare takes its place, because how dare Captain Rogers assume that just because she's younger it matters.

"I do not understand. Is the young warrior not capable?" She's more capable than anyone in this room, and she would state the fact again for them all, offer a demonstration and kick Rogers' ass if they'd let her, but an explosion rocks the helicarrier, alarms ringing off everywhere and everyone stumbles slightly. Another explosion follows directly afterwards, throwing Steve and Tony through the door, Coulson and Fury backwards and Natasha and Bruce fall through the floor as the grates around them give way.

"Natasha!" Her anger at Phil dissipates for a moment, the concern in his voice evident.

"I'm okay!" She calls back, even over the alarms, "We're okay!" But she just turns to the side, watching Dr Banner pant and groan and, "Dr Banner, Dr Banner!" She's definitely not okay, Natasha has to scurry from under the flooring that's pinned her leg, watching as Dr Banner slowly and steadily gives way to the Hulk and if she's not quick she won't need to worry about finding Clint anymore.

*


	10. Natasha Romanova; teen agent, Avenger

There had been three times in her life that Natasha Romanoff has felt panic.

The first time was right at the beginning of her new chapter, the night she decided against killing a US politician for the Red Room, the night she sealed her fate by ignoring her orders, the night Hawkeye saved her. It was somewhat poetic really; the night her conscience finally got the better of her was the same night SHIELD had organized her kill order. She'd panicked then because she'd believed this was it, that was her death. Until the arrows flew and Clint saved her, in more ways than one.

The second time had, naturally, been her first day of high school. It seemed strange, perhaps, but Natasha would rather face a squadron of HYDRA operatives than have to face starting high school again. There were so many rules in the life of teenagers that Natasha truly felt out of her depth that first day. She'd confided in Clint and he'd made her watch Mean Girls, like it'd fix anything, only it did, a little. Because Natasha didn't feel so out of her depth the next day, and even if she wasn't Queen Bee, she was someone nobody wanted to mess with.

She'd only ever panicked on a mission once; out of range and off target, without Coulson in her ear or Clint at her back and not knowing if they were safe or dead or not. It had been a harrowing three hours before she caught sight of either of them and she knew from the relief on Coulson's face that she wasn't the only one. Coulson tended to keep trackers on them in the field after that.

This, right here, this was a different kind of panic. As Natasha pushed herself to run through the underbelly of the Helicarrier, forcing the pain in her ankle from her mind and weaving in and out of the bays. This could be her tomb, if she stopped, if she faltered. For all that Dr Banner was sweet and shy and unassuming, the Hulk had no qualms about destroying, he had no conscience, no thought for others. Natasha couldn't afford to let herself feel until the Hulk was no longer a threat.

She's always been good at moving; she's a fairly adept gymnast, she's got agility and speed on her side, her size helps most of the time. She's not quite as quick as Clint is, but he's been scurrying in and out of vents and holes since his earliest, so she doesn't really think it counts. She's not sure if Hulk is that fast or if her ankle is damaged more than she thought at first, but it's like she's barely gaining any ground, weaving her way through slates and grates, pulling herself through the numerous nooks that Clint's already shown her in the Helicarrier. She should have the upper hand, knowing the terrain, covering the ground in a series of short cuts, but Hulk just shoves through absolutely everything, barreling past boxes and crates, tearing through walls.

Natasha's backed up though, she's boxed in and Hulk is right there and she's not going to make it to see if Clint's okay. She'll be another bloodstain on the Helicarrier wall and Dr Banner will live with the guilt and Coulson will live with the regret and Clint might not live at all. She makes a move to grab her side arm, because if she's going to be crushed by a massive rage fuelled monster, she's not going out without some kind of battle and she's ready to let loose her entire clip into the beasts face if it might give her a little more time.

She can feel the air shift, feel the breath from the Hulk as it closes the space and she steels everything in herself for her last stand and then...

Then Thor bursts through a wall and tackles Hulk into the hanger bay. Natasha's sure that her life has just played in short clip in front of her eyes. She's never actually had that before, not even in the moments where she'd been sure her life was about to end in battle or on a mission. She's just stuck there, huddled on the floor trying to process everything, clutching her gun to her chest.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing is that she has her own regrets. There are things she's yet to do, things she wants to do. Like graduate, she'd actually like to do that, which is surprising, because she hardly cared about school when she was informed she was going to have to attend. She'd like to decide if college is for her or not, she's fairly sure that it's not, but that decision is one she wants to come to on her own, not have it taken away by a green monster killing her. Or any monster killing her. She wants to see Phil's face when she finally tells him that he's the father she'd always dreamed of, to see Clint actually fall in love, to maybe find something for herself. Not love, but companionship maybe. She wants to know how the Avenger Initiative plays out.

The fight between Thor and Hulk rages on, and Natasha can hear the damage being inflicted around her, she knows that things are getting out of control, especially when the jet starts firing and Hulk roars. But it's not like she'd be any help right then, and there's no point in attempting to move when her heart is pounding away in her ears and her ankle is throbbing.

"Barton's on the walkway."

Except suddenly it's not important. Natasha knows straight away that Fury is giving her the message, that it's for her and her alone, because she won't let anyone else take on Clint, she won't let this come to someone else.

"I'm on it." She pushes the pain aside, something she's done a million times before, something she's been trained to do, something she just has to cope with right then, moving herself away from the fray between Hulk and the fighter jet, trusting that nothing else will happen and Tony and Steve can keep them airborne while she reclaims their sniper.

The sight of him almost makes her breath catch. She's seen Clint at his worst; wrung out on nightmare or worn down from jobs or just fed up with school and bored out his mind. She's seen him covered in blood, his own and other peoples, seen him caked in dirt and grime and ash, seen him powdered with sugar and eyes red rimmed from sleep deprivation, but she's never seen him like this. The glow around his eyes isn't the most daunting thing; it's the deep shadows underneath, the pale sheen to his skin. He looks worse than he did when he'd managed to get an infected knife wound in Burma.

Natasha knows that she can't waste time; his stride tells her everything she needs to know and she just lets her concern for him sit on the back burner. She needs to get him _back_  before she can let herself worry.

They've sparred enough that Natasha knows she's going to need to use the element of surprise carefully. Swinging herself around the beams, she aims for his head, catching his arm instead as he blocks at the last minute. Right then they're not Clint and Natasha, they're Hawkeye and Black Widow, and for the first time in six years, they're on opposite sides.

Sparring and doing battle aren't the same thing, Hawkeye's fist to her ribcage hurts like it wouldn't during a spar, it aches in her bones when his elbow hits her eye socket and her knuckles twinge from her own fist to his sternum. They can't utilize their weapons properly in the cramped space, it's possibly just as well for her that Clint can't get his bow out for proper use and she's grateful that she doesn't have the opportunity to really break out her bracelets for use. 

It's when Clint blocks one of her attacks, twists it into a grapple that Natasha realizes something. She's holding back; her emotions are interfering with her battle and she's not putting her all into it. She doesn't want to see him hurt, doesn't want to be the one to hurt him, and if she's not careful it will result in him killing her. Then she realizes that if she's holding back, and he's not already beat her, something in him is holding him back too. He knows her, he can track her movements and actions, he can anticipate her attacks from her tells.

Natasha breaks the grapple, using as much force as possible to slam into his leg with her foot, bringing him to his knees and doing the one thing she can think of to stop him. Smacking his head against the rail of the walkway. Clint reaches up to brace himself and Natasha takes a step back, heart hammering away in her chest as she stops for just a second.

"Nat?" There's a smear of blood on his forehead, just at his temple, but the colour hasn't cleared from his eyes and Natasha holds her breath before bringing her leg around again and knocking him out. She just has to pray that it works.

Checking for a pulse, Natasha kneels beside Clint, radioing for a medical and containment team, giving Barton's status and waiting. Her fingers don't leave his neck until the unit arrives' they check his vitals and when they pull back his eyelids, Natasha is relieved to see the faint blue glow is starting to fade out, that Clint's own colour is starting to stand out better. She thinks things might finally be looking up.

"Phil Coulson is dead." It echoes in her head, Fury's voice over the communications and Natasha only just stops herself from falling to her knees, grief pulsing in her like a fist punching up through her throat.

Clint. She needs to stay with Clint, because she's not letting this get to him through any other channel but her.

*

Waiting is horrific.

She'd had to force her way into the room; she hates the containment rooms, even if they prove useful, she hates them. Even just sitting watching and waiting. There's nothing to distract her, and while she'd half hoped for it, she could use something to halt her thoughts.

But there was nothing, Clint hadn't regained consciousness, although the wound on his head had been cleaned and covered, so Natasha was left to sit and watch, while the chaos spread around her. Thor was missing, Hulk was gone, Loki was free, Phil was dead. Natasha felt horrifically guilty at the relief of having Clint back when she'd need to struggle later with his grief and her own over Phil. There were too many questions circling in her head; how would they come out of this? What would happen to her and Clint now? What were they going to do about Loki? Did Phil's family even know about her and Clint?

The moment that Clint's wrists tense, Natasha is out of her seat and out of her thoughts, over to Clint's side as his breathing hitches and his eyes start to open. He's already covered in a light sweat, his muscles tensing tightly as he pulls against the restraint on his arms, jaw clenching and Natasha reaches out to smooth a hand over his brow and rest her other on his wrist, just at the pulse. She knows all too well the disorientation of waking like this; she doesn't want him to suffer it without her.

Clint's pulse is erratic; it's too fast and just a little bit thready, which worries her a little. Until his eyes open and then she almost steps back. His eyes still have a slight glow, like something's still holding to him and he's not quite back with her.

"Nat," she tightens her grip on his arm as he groans out her name, her fingers stroking his forehead again and she watches him blink past the glow around his irises. Clint's struggle to find something to focus on is apparent, his eyes darting around and lingering on nothing before moving again, another few blinks and the soft blue of Clint's eyes were all that stared at the wall. Even with the dark shadows underneath his eyes, with the paleness of his skin and the sheen of sweat, Natasha had never been so relieved.

"Back with us?" He wasn't yet fully focused, but she couldn't be sure what kind of state he'd been in for the last few days; if he'd been aware of his every action or if it was slowly flowing into his consciousness now. She wouldn't rush him, letting him respond to her at his own pace.

"I..." the frown furrowed between his brows, drawing lines over his forehead that Natasha's finger softly ran over. "My head feels like its split."

"That might be my fault." She tapped lightly on the covering over his wound, giving him a soft smile that he didn't return, possibly for the first time ever.

"No, not outside, inside." His gaze trailed away from her, flicking to the ceiling and then the wall, darting around the room like he was looking for something before he jerked his arms, twitching slightly at the lack of give his restraints had. Taking a step backwards, still within his peripheral vision, Natasha let him yank at his cuffs for a moment, the strain pulling at his muscles until Clint gave in and sagged back against the bed, heaving a sigh. "It feels like everything was pulled out and forced back in, like it didn't fit right but it was forced to anyway. It's all raw and tender, like--" Natasha picked up the bottle of water behind Clint, uncapping it and pouring it into the glass sitting there. "You know what it's like to be unmade?"

Her fingers were nimble as they expertly unlatched the cuffs holding his wrist down, undoing the one closest to her and allowing him to release his other arm. She'd likely be scolded like the child everyone was treating her like recently for doing so without Fury's express permission, but she wasn't about to hold her partner hostage when he wasn't a threat to her.

"You know I do." She just handed him the glass as he sat up, rubbing his slightly chafed wrist before he took it, staring at the liquid like it had all the answers. "But it'll pass, you're back and things will slot to where they're meant to go." Clint pulled himself to sit on the bed with his legs falling over the edge, back hunched over as he nodded at her comment. Natasha pulled herself to sit beside him, their shoulders pressed to one another in a silent offer of comfort. "Loki escaped." It was unlikely to be the topic that they should discuss right then, but Natasha wasn't mentioning Phil to Clint just yet. "They might not let us go."

"Go where?"

"To fight him, to help. They said that I was--" Natasha shrugged her shoulders, trailing off. She didn't want to relive the conversation that brought them here; Hulk's attack, Loki's escape, Phil's death. Anything to avoid it. "I'm too young."

"Right," Clint snorted slightly, his fingers clasping around his glass, "And since when do you want to go to war?"

"Since some lunatic God messed with my family." Natasha didn't call him that often, but it was true. She'd made a family out of them just like Clint had. She didn't need blood to dictate who she called her kin. Clint just met her gaze, a tiny spark of himself bleeding back into his expression.

"I guess I would feel better if I put an arrow through Loki's eye." It was flat though, barely any of his personality in the snark, and Natasha swore that she'd keep an eye on him, regardless of how things played out. She might think she was old enough for this, and she knew that Clint was just as capable as she was, but she half didn't want him in the battle herself.

"Why don't you clean up, then we'll see what's happening?" Clint gave a nod, his hand dropping to her knee for a reassuring squeeze before he slipped into the ensuite bathroom to pull himself together away from her unwavering gaze. Natasha used the time to do the same, to push her feelings and grief and worry to the back and focus on the job. They still had an invasion to stop, still had Loki to defeat.

The door to the room opened with a hiss as Natasha stood off the bed, revealing Captain Rogers in his field uniform, expression solemn.

"We're going to New York," it stood to reason that 'we' was Iron Man and Captain America, likely where Loki was planning his attack, "we haven't been given the go by SHIELD, do you know how to fly one of the jets?" Natasha was adept at flying the jets, and she could use all the weapon systems flawlessly, but taking off and landing? Those were different.

"No," Steve's face almost shuttered, disappointment flashing in his eyes for a bare second before the ensuite door opened and Clint appeared.

"But I can." Clint looked a lot better, still tired, still worn out, but not as obviously so to an outsider. Natasha could still see the darkness under his eyes, but to anyone else it was just a little sleep deprivation, barely something to mention. Captain Rogers gave Natasha one look, as if asking her permission? Her approval? She wasn't rightly sure which it was, but she nodded all the same. If there was anywhere that Clint needed to be, that she needed to be, it was out there, avenging Phil Coulson. Even if Clint didn't know that was what he was doing yet.

"Do you have a uniform?" Clint smirked a little, giving his own nod in answer and Steve just sighed before stating, "Suit up, we leave in five," and then turning away.

*

It's common occurrence for Natasha to get lost in the heat of battle. It's perfectly natural, for her, to shut everything off but the raging war around her. She's not usually in the thick of things, it's true, but every now and then a loud gun battle is nice.

She's mostly surprised at how well the team works together. Stark was already in the thick of things by the time the jet was shot from the sky and Clint managed what Natasha knew was an impressive crash landing; impressive due to the level of damage that wasn't inflicted upon the street, the aircraft and the number of aliens Clint managed to crush underneath the jet.

Once Thor showed up, and eventually Banner, Natasha half expected a battle between them for leadership, but even Tony just seamlessly followed Captain America's directions, going so far as to trade quips with Clint. Natasha didn't miss the curious look from Banner when he first arrived, before the Hulk took over and was much friendlier towards their team than previously so, she didn't miss the way Tony gave Clint a supportive clap on the shoulder before giving him a lift to his preferred perch for easier picking. But no one actually commented on it to either her or Clint, so it was put aside until later.

She barely noticed the absence of Phil in her ear, listening instead to Tony and Clint, to Steve give orders, to Clint keep her back clear as she made the ascent towards the tip of Stark Tower, intent on destroying whatever the device was that was opening the portal to allow Loki's army through.

The few moments where Tony was gone, those minutes where she was sure they'd just had to watch another sacrifice being made were gut churning. Natasha watched the sky even as she thrust the scepter into the cube and triggered the failsafe, locking down the portal as the aliens around them fell dead facing the detonation of the nuclear missile in their home realm, she still watched for the reappearance of Tony. When the fleck of red finally started plummeting from the sky, just falling without any power from Iron Man, Natasha started the quick run from the top of Stark Tower to the balcony, watching the small huddle around Iron Man's form before the sound of Tony's voice finally filtered into her ear piece.

"Clint?" She hadn't heard from him for a while, no smart comments, no muttered curses, no pop culture references that she still didn't get. With Tony now standing, the Hulk apparently grabbing Steve and Tony to jump the distance between the bridge they'd convened on and the base of the tower, Natasha waited for Clint's response with little patience. "Hawkeye, where are you?" It took Hulk two leaps before he had Iron Man and Captain America beside Natasha on the balcony, the assassin still waiting on word from her partner while the two adults just glanced between each other.

"Worry not, Lady Widow, the Hawk is well. He wishes to relay that his communication piece was lost in battle, but no harm has befallen him." Natasha let loose a sigh of relief at Thor's words, watching for the reappearance of Thor, this time with Clint by his side. Hulk was already inside the tower, Tony nodding Natasha inside in front of him and Steve while Thor apparently threw his hammer and dragged Clint up with him to the rest of them at the top of the tower.

"What the hell is that? That's not flying, okay, that's just, God, I don't even know what that is. Don't fucking do that, okay? Tony flies. That's flying; you just get dragged behind a fucking hammer. How is that even possible?" Natasha isn't fooled, for all that Clint is talking, she knows that he's just trying to deflect attention. She catalogues each of his injuries, assessing the damage and potential repercussions of each wound, while he no doubt does the same.

Her ankle is worse than it had been, she'll need to restrap it later and possibly ice it overnight, but she's mostly unscathed, a few small cuts and bumps from debris around them and the drop to the top of the tower. Clint however, is covered in small scrapes, along his arms and shoulder, where his uniform doesn't cover. She's sure that she spots Thor picking a piece of glass from Clint's arm. His head is bleeding again and he's holding his back stiffly, but beyond that, she'd say they're all in okay condition.

"So, what're we doing with him?" Tony nods his head towards Loki, effectively gaining everyone's attention again, and Natasha stands back to allow Steve, Thor and Tony to talk it out. She, Clint and Hulk just sort of wait there. She doesn't even mention the fact that Clint is teaching Hulk how to play thumb wars.

*


	11. Natasha Romanova; former-killer, current-protector

Loki is once again packed up and herded off. SHIELD have a secondary containment idea, it's Reed Richards' beta testing cube, which gets a scoff from Tony, but nothing else is said. There are teams of agents running around, cleaning up the mess, helping to get the civilians to safety, trying their best to manage the media frenzy that's already starting. Tony's on the phone, and from the tone and the way he's barely getting a word in, Natasha is sure he's talking to Pepper.

Bruce, who de-Hulked shortly after Loki was taken away with an armed entourage of about twenty-five agents, is hovering over Clint, just at the far end of the street, making sure all the glass is pulled from his arms and the worst of his injuries are treated, the wound on Tony's head had been dealt with and Steve's side had been patched, even though it had mostly healed by the time the medics got to him. Steve had been the one to make sure Natasha's ankle was sorted, even though it meant she was now wandering around in a pair of black converse that Tony fabricated from _somewhere_  since her boots would no longer fit on her feet.

"So," Steve looks like he's trying to find something for them to do now, like he's not sure where they go from here. They've all tried to help with the clean-up, but each time they've been waved away. Except for when Thor and Hulk had assisted in lifting part of a wall away from an entrance to a building to help evacuate.

Steve stands by Natasha's side, Thor shuffling over as Steve looks around, before Bruce directs Clint over with a hand at his back. From what Natasha can tell of Clint's expression, he's been worrying out loud. It's comforting to know that Bruce has a fairly protective edge to him, the Hulk definitely seemed content enough to sit on the floor of Stark's tower and play juvenile games with Clint until the team had come to a decision about Loki, so maybe the Hulk just needed a little gentler handling.

"Are we wrapping up?" Bruce looks like he'd rather be anywhere but there, and his cursory glance towards Natasha shows some regret and concern on his face, so Natasha gives him a tiny smile in return. She won't hold the Hulk against him; she won't even hold the momentary panic and the fear from the Helicarrier against the Hulk. Things happened; Natasha had long since learned to let it go.

"Yeah, I think we should head back to-"

"Excuse me," Steve is interrupted by a slightly stocky man in a dark suit with sunglasses on. Why he needs sunglasses when the streets are filled with dust and smog, Natasha doesn't know. She does recognize the stance though, and that of the four men at his back. Clint evidently does as well, shrinking back until his shoulder is level with Natasha's. She and Clint now stand side by side, in between Steve and Bruce with Thor just in front and to the side. She hates the sunglasses right then, because she can't tell for sure where this agents eyes are trained, but she has a suspicion that they haven’t moved from Clint. "Agents Romanoff and Barton are to come in with us."

"And you are?" Attention shifts to Dr Banner, and hopefully these idiots know better than to push too much at Dr Banner.

"Classified. Agents?" There's an eyebrow quirk, and even without it being spoken out loud, Natasha knows that they can't outright say no.

"Sorry," so Tony does it for them, "no can do, celebratory Shwarma date." Natasha is so grateful for the intervention that she doesn't shrug off the arm that Tony loops over her shoulders, Clint doesn't either. "You boys can come back for your agents later." And with that Tony just sort of starts them moving down the street, taking over from where Steve had initially started. "Seriously, have you ever had Shwarma? It's Greek, I've been told. No point in asking you if you've been to Greece, right? Probably classified." Tony keeps up the running commentary as they walk, not looking behind them, not even checking that the rest of the Avengers are following on behind them.

When they arrive outside the restaurant that Tony was talking about, it's mostly undamaged from the invasion and the owners appear to be inside. Natasha almost feels bad for them as Tony launches into a long spiel and requests that they eat. From the look on their faces, they're not enthusiastic, but they don't say no.

"Two of your best for all five of us," Tony grins, sitting down at the only standing table, directly opposite, "make that three for bird-boy here, seriously, you look like you don't eat." Clint just ducks his head, twisting in his seat until his leg rests on Natasha's stool and his body is facing her. Conversation is stilted at first, no one really wanting to mention the battle until Bruce sheepishly apologizes for Hulk punching Thor.

"You need not worry, Doctor, formidable though the Green One is, I have withstood worse." It gets them started, Steve offering up his appreciation of Thor's assistance, Thor asking about the influence behind Tony's impersonation of Jonah, Tony agreeing that JARVIS hadn't been all that thrilled with the idea either.

"You know, the preliminary report indicated that there were only two arrows found without a body attached." Steve just mentions it in passing, although the attention is brought to Clint after that, who is just picking at his Shwarma slowly and not really contributing too much. "You started with a good hundred arrows didn't you?" Clint nods at the question, still avoiding eye contact.

"Clint is, without doubt, the greatest marksman in the world." Natasha is willing to do a little boasting on Clint's behalf, since Clint is oddly shy about it right then.

"Where the hell does SHIELD find you people?" Tony wonders out loud, "I mean seriously, how old are you? You look about fifteen for Christ sake." It's always been a boon to Clint, he hates that Natasha can dress herself up, put on some make-up and look like a twenty-year-old, but even after a battle of cosmic proportions, Clint still looks like the teenager he is. And usually he looks younger.

"'m sixteen." There's an edge of petulance to his tone, because Clint is touchy about these things, but Tony just blazes right past it.

"Holy fuck," Steve seems just as surprised, although he doesn't have an exclamation at it, just a quiet, "Language, Stark." aimed at Tony, like Clint and Natasha haven't heard worse. "Is SHIELD running some kind of child assassin ring? How long have you two even been agents? Dear God, is Coulson running some--" Tony cuts himself off this time, evidently having forgotten for a bare second as his face shutters up with the memory and he just sighs. "Sorry, no, I--" Natasha's never heard Stark apologies before, but she doesn't even get to savor it.

"What?" Clint's aware that something is off, from the looks that are passed around the table, he can figure that much out. "Nat?"

"On the carrier, when Loki escaped," Natasha just shook her head. Clint would start asking soon, with the incident after the battle, before Stark steered them away, Natasha knew it wouldn't be long and Clint would be asking why Coulson hadn't shown up to chew them out and check them over and then chew them out again. "Phil's de--"

She doesn't even get it out of her mouth before Clint's out of his seat and near sprinting to the door before he heaves and vomits his stomach contents over the sidewalk. The owners looked worried, moving to approach them before Dr Banner intercepted while Natasha followed Clint out. She was aware of the others trailing behind her, just marginally slower. Clint was hunched over, retching uncontrollably and near shaking. She wasn't sure if it was just shock, or if it was a culmination of everything; shock, hunger, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, grief. All of it mixed up until his body just gave in and broke down.

When he did collapse, shaking and silently crying, Natasha caught him, moving them back to sit at the stoop of the restaurant while she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head to her chest. She couldn't protect him all the time, she knew that, but she had desperately wanted to protect him from this.

"It wasn't you," Steve's tone was careful, his attempt to comfort not going unnoticed, but Clint just shook worse against Natasha. "Loki was the one to--"

"He wasn't just our handler," Natasha half whispered, stroking a hand over Clint's hair as his face turned to her neck, his own attempt to hide his breakdown from outsiders. "Clint's been with Phil since he was six; I've been with him since I was eleven." Long enough to build trust, to foster connections and make bonds. "He is...He was practically our father." Which was the crux of it all. They hadn't just lost a handler, no doubt that would be easier to move on from, but they lost their only true parent. Hill and Fury were the equivalent of relations, an aunt and uncle who were almost constantly around, maybe, but Phil had been more than that.

"Nat," Clint pulled back suddenly, eyes wide and rimmed with red, streaks of tear stains on his cheeks, "you can't let them...I can't...they'll..." The gasping for breath was making it difficult for Clint to get anything out, and Natasha saw the panic start to seep into his face.

"Hey, easy," Steve crouched down, laying a hand on Clint's shoulder and the other on his back, softly stroking up and down in a steady pace, the others huddling around the trio now sitting on the ground, "try to calm down a little, you'll make yourself sick again." Clint was probably already cringing from his reactions, but his breathing was already steadying, and Natasha half remembered reading somewhere that Steve Rogers had been asthmatic before the serum. "Now, what're you trying to say?" Clint just turned imploring eyes to Natasha.

"The agents, from before, they're CARE specialists."

"Care?" Bruce frowned, arms crossed over his chest but remaining a safe distance from the SHIELD agents and Steve.

"Compromised Agent Re-evaluation Exam." Clint managed to wheeze it out, his face pale again, body sagging from the used up energy.

"They run the mental, physical and emotional evaluations on agents who've been compromised in the field. It's a test to figure out if an agent is stable enough to return to active duty pending the required psych evaluations or if the compromisation is too deep." Natasha tried not to be too brisk, but she noticed the wince from Clint and she knew he knew he wouldn't pass it. Clint wasn't just compromised in the sense that Loki had used him against SHIELD; Clint had been compromised a long time ago, his attachment to Phil and Natasha paving the way. She wasn't one to point fingers, but Clint certainly wasn't mentally stable at the best of times.

"And if the agent isn't ruled stable?" Stark already knows the answer, he has to, Natasha can't think of any other reason why Tony Stark would sound so unsure, lacking in any bluster or arrogance.

"They're treated like an enemy of SHIELD."

" _Killed_?" It's Steve that almost shrieks, gaining a raised eyebrow from Natasha and a bitter chuckle from Clint.

"Not that extreme. Just, well," swiping the back of his hand over his face, Clint heaves a deep breath, "containment usually. Locked up where they can't do harm, not to themselves, not to SHIELD, not to the world. Just left somewhere to rot away, go nuts," another sharp laugh and Clint started to giggle, hiccupping setting in before anyone could really do anything.

Somehow, Dr Banner produced a bottle of water, handing it to Steve who held it up for Clint. It took a while before he calmed down again, and this time every ounce of energy was gone.

"Don't make me go back."

"You're not going anywhere." Steve took the words right out of Natasha's mouth, but he said them with such command that she was certain it was practically an oath. In the moment, sitting on the cold, hard floor, Clint sagging against her again, Natasha recognized what Phil saw in this American icon, why he was such a hero in everyone's eyes. He had nobility; he had determination and strength that was lacking in the world of today. "We run interference; I don't care how it's done. Neither of them are going near SHIELD until I've spoken to Fury directly."

Natasha had scoffed before, when Fury had handed her the brief on his Avengers Initiative, the people he'd intended to include. She'd thought it was disaster trying to happen, untrained and uncooperative superpowers existing in the one team, egos and powers and personalities clashing more than hero and villain would. She'd thought he'd lost his mind, that he'd just had too much time to sit and concoct crazy notions.

Natasha will admit, to herself and maybe Clint, that she'd been wrong. These Avengers might just work.

*

It's determined by someone that they can't stay at Stark tower, Bruce doesn't have a place, Tony's family mansion in New York is in serious 'haunted' mode and Steve only has a small, one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that may or may not be standing. Tony solves the problem quickly and snaps up the penthouse of the Marriot.

Pepper meets them there, her arms wrapping around Tony's neck the minute he steps inside and the rest of them excuse themselves into the main room of the suite to let the couple have some privacy. Natasha hadn't ever figured out if Pepper had known that Tony's flirting with her during her undercover op had been half-hearted, if Pepper had realized her boss's feelings before Tony had managed to actually figure it out himself, or if they were both blindsided. For all that Tony irritated her, and she respected Pepper, she thought they were rather cute together, not that she'd ever voice that.

"Natasha," when Pepper emerged, a little less shaken and with a small smile on her face, Natasha was amused to note the slight hand print on Tony's cheek, coupled with the 'just kissed' expression. Yeah, she definitely liked Pepper.

"Miss Potts."

"Oh, please, it's Pepper, you know it's Pepper." Natasha got her own hug, even as Pepper was introduced to everyone else in the suite. "I have a change of clothes for everyone; 

I had to guess sizes based on Tony's rather lacking descriptions, although JARVIS helped with yours and Agent Barton's." At the mention of Clint, everyone glanced over to the youngest member of the group right then.

"Sorry Pep," Tony just smirked, almost looking fond, "Tweety's had a bit of an exhausting time of it." Natasha was sure Pepper wouldn't take it personal that Clint had curled up on the couch in the middle of the suite and fallen fast asleep. Natasha just hoped they all understood the level of trust that showed, for Clint to comfortably allow himself to just pass out in the room with them all.

Natasha took her cue from Clint; clearly he felt safe enough to sleep, so she trusted the team enough to leave Clint with them while she showered. Pepper had brought her a change of clothes to wear and a set of clothes suitable for sleeping. Tony must've filled Pepper in at some point, likely when he told her where to meet them; Natasha was just surprised that she had gone with it all so easily. But then, this was the unflappable Miss Potts.

Just getting under the shower spray eased a lot of the tension from Natasha's body. She felt used up, torn down. The grime and blood that clung to her skin washed away down the drain, but she didn't feel any cleaner. The penthouse suite had three bedrooms it seemed, Steve insisted that Natasha take one, and while she would normally argue about it, she really could use a decent nights rest.

It wasn't until sometime in the middle of the night when the door opened silently and Natasha picked up the familiar footsteps of Clint padding into the room, then Natasha started to relax into the massive bed which easily could've housed Steve and Thor. Natasha didn't even bother to wait for Clint's request, just shuffling to the center of the bed herself and raising the side of the covers for Clint to slip in beside her. It had been a fairly long time since they'd felt the need to curl up around one another for comfort. Natasha remembered each of the times he'd succumbed to his own past and sought refuge in her bed, just like she remembered each time an implanted memory had broken free in her mind and twisted her memories again.

"I keep dreaming that...that my arrow..."

"Stop," Natasha cut him off, whispering it slowly against his hair. "You blew out engine three; you maimed nine agents and wounded four. You left Fury with a bruised chest and Hill with a knock on the head and a cracked rib." She'd already looked into it on the Helicarrier, before the final battle, before they left, before he even woke up. She knew he'd want to know, knew that it would matter. "You aimed for the chest, back in New Mexico," Clint's breath felt warm against Natasha's chest, the tips of his fingers tapping out morse code on her hip, making her smile just a little. "Everyone knows Fury always wears a vest, and you aimed for the chest, not the head. You could've killed him and you didn't. Stop beating yourself up."

If there was one thing that Natasha trusted about Clint Barton, it was that he'd always care too much. About people and things that didn't always deserve care, but that was just his way. Natasha trusted that Clint would always care about her, would always have that loyalty and trust. No level of mind control would change that, not in her eyes.

"Get some sleep, we'll need it tomorrow." Because nothing was likely to hold Fury off for too long.

*

Breakfast came courtesy of Pepper, room service strewn out all around the suite's main room. Natasha had thought that maybe Pepper had gone a little overboard, until Thor, Steve and Clint started to eat and then she wondered if there would be enough for Tony to soak up some of the coffee he seemed to be inhaling.

She wasn't sure what it was, but there was definitely something lingering, unsaid between the group, that she and Clint were being kept out of. It would've bothered her if she'd thought they were doing it because they were children, if they were trying to protect their presumed innocence. With the exception of maybe Thor, Natasha would bet that she and Clint had seen more battle than any of the men in the room, possibly all of them combined. And she was including Steve's foray in World War two into that.

Clint stumbles off to shower after eating more than his fair share, although after yesterday's panic, she half understands why he'd be so hungry, and Natasha is practically shooed off to get herself dressed.

"So, we know we're keeping them from SHIELD, do we know how?" She's not ashamed to eavesdrop on them; she's not even going to feel guilty about it later. These are things she needs to know, because with Phil gone... With Phil gone, Natasha has to take care of Clint. That's how it works. These people, this team, they'll either help her or hinder her, and she needs to know that now.

"Well, I may not have a Tower at the moment, but I do still have a mansion. I have two in fact." Natasha had never been privy to the Stark Mansion in New York, although apparently it was Maria Stark's greatest accomplishment and Tony's somewhat hollow childhood home. And she remembered the Malibu mansion, at least what was left of it after Tony's birthday stunt.

"That's a good idea," Pepper's heels clicked on the floor, and Natasha moved along the wall of her room a little, listening just as closely, "Clint and Natasha would be able to lay low at the mansion, Steve it'd be good for you too, you're far too pale. And Tony is on record as saying he prefers the sunshine. I can pitch it as a bonding strategy." So they were talking about the Malibu home. Maybe Pepper had a point, it was removed enough from New York that it might be good for Clint, and SHIELD would take a while to get anyone in the area.

"I must depart firstly, my friends. I feel my brother must be returned to Asgard as promptly as possible. With the Tesseract in possession, a pathway can be opened to our realm."

"What're you doing?" Clint blinked at Natasha from the other doorway, steam leaving the bathroom and Clint standing in the pants Pepper got him with a towel over his shoulders. She wasn't shocked to see bruises on his ribs, or the marks on his arms standing out more under the light. 

"Just some recon," she moved away from the door and wall, grabbing her own clothes and pressing a kiss to Clint's cheek as she passed him, heading into the bathroom herself, "we'll need to get some sunglasses." She was grateful that the others were taking this seriously enough, although she really shouldn't have expected less of Pepper Potts or Steve Rogers. Even Dr Banner was a pragmatic sort. They would take the necessary steps to ensure that Clint was safe, she had to believe that Steve meant what he said, that they would be kept away from SHIELD until Clint was prepared enough to deal with the CARE procedures and Natasha was comfortable enough letting anyone near him.

Even with Thor leaving for a while, hopefully just a while, Natasha could see that he was a strong addition to the Avengers team, even if Fury had never actually factored Thor in on things in a full term basis, but even with that departure, Natasha was confident enough that Fury would see the team as being a good one. Banner had a lot to contribute, and the Hulk had appeared content to co-operate in the battlefield, and with Stark and Rogers slowly ebbing into the comrade frame of mind, Natasha could see that Iron Man and Captain America would make a formidable force in the battle field.

Even with Fury's hope of Ms Marvel and Captain Britain joining the team, Natasha couldn't say the current set up was all that bad. If they managed to get around their clashing personalities.

"Hey, Nat, Miss Potts says we're going. You ready?" In her dark jeans and t-shirt, Natasha slipped from the bathroom, offering a smile to a now fully dressed Clint. He was still too pale and still too sleep deprived, but maybe Malibu would fix that up for him.

"Yeah, bratishka, let's go."

*

Watching Steve standoff with Fury is almost enough to make Natasha laugh out loud. It's evident that Fury doesn't really expect it; he's shocked for one thing, after Loki's out of the way and Thor's off to Asgard for however long, SHIELD almost swarm the area with scientists to take readings from where Thor and Loki vanished from. Pepper's nearby, on the phone with someone and glancing over frequently, eyes constantly going to Natasha and Clint. Tony's been running interference with Bruce, stopping anyone who looks at all military from getting near the doctor and Natasha's quickly learning to alter her perception when it comes to Tony Stark.

She's pretty sure that Clint does like him, so she wasn't that far off about him.

"Captain Rogers, I'm sure you mean well, but they have school to attend." Fury's arguments are getting weaker and weaker, even Fury knows that they are. He's used the 'they're just kids' line, which Steve didn't even need to respond to, because Fury was the one who had 'just kids' as SHIELD agents. He'd gone for the mandatory debrief and Steve and squashed that with the _team_  already debriefing collectively.

"Unless I'm mistaken, public school let out for the summer three weeks ago. Clint and Natasha are between grades, they should get a summer vacation just like everyone else." Summer vacation with a group of superheroes in California, Natasha was pretty sure that was one hell of a summer break.

"Look, they're not Avengers, they're SHIELD operatives. They have to return to the Helicarrier for debrief and reassignment." Clint's shoulders had gone steadily more tense by the minute, Fury's determination that they return to the SHIELD carrier, the one that Clint had a hand in crippling, where agents were in hospital beds thanks to Clint's arrows, where Phil had _died_  in an attack that Clint had orchestrated. She could tell that he was already preparing himself for Steve having no option but letting Fury take them in.

"Okay!" Bruce and Tony wandered over, three military lackeys standing by the far quadrant of the dais with red faces and shocked expressions while Tony grinned, clearly pleased with himself. "Are we ready to go? Pep's got the jet prepped."

"Go?" The surprise is back on Fury's face and Tony just lets that gleeful grin grow all the bigger.

"Team celebrations! Those of us over twenty one engaged in copious amounts of alcoholic beverages last night, and those us under twenty one are engaging in copious amounts of fun today. Well, likely tomorrow, but we need to use today to travel." It seemed like no one was sure what Tony was talking about, which just added to Fury's shocked expression. "Well, c'mon, let’s go! Apparently we're meant to be on time for flights, even when I own the jet."

Tony's arm went around Clint's shoulders, Bruce just shrugging at Steve's confusion and following on. Natasha attached herself to Clint's other side just as Steve fell into step beside Bruce, ignoring Fury's irritated questioning.

"Um, Mr Stark?"

"Tony, bird-boy, it's Tony."

"Okay, Tony, um, where are we going?" Clint didn't shrug from Tony's grasp, even as Pepper directed them all into a car, Natasha taking Clint's side while once again, Tony kept his arm over Clint's shoulder, resting along the back of the stretch limo. They didn't start moving until Pepper climbed in, the door shutting behind her as she smiled encouragingly at Natasha and placed her hand on Tony's knee.

"Vacation, sprite. We're having a vacation in the Magical Kingdom."

"Um," this time it was Steve that sounded perplexed, while Clint was just staring at Tony in awe. "Magical Kingdom?"

"Disneyland, Steve. We're taking the mini-assassins to the most fun place in the world."

It seemed like a terrible idea. A horrible, terrible, spur of the moment Tony Stark idea. But Natasha could see the hint of excitement in Clint's features, and Steve seemed oddly interested while Bruce was just in his calm and serene state of being. Natasha figured she could play teenager for a little while.

*


	12. Natasha Romanova; meddler to the ... stars?

The thing about Malibu, about California in general really, is that _is_  really relaxing. Natasha figures Tony might be onto something with the whole idea. They do the Disneyland thing, as much an experience for her and Clint as it is for Steve. She and Clint agree to leave everything at the gates and just be teenagers, to enjoy the place as it was intended, like Tony apparently wants. It's fun, really, genuine fun. Clint hates the 'small world' ride, but can't get the song out of his head, Natasha doesn't like the Roger Rabbit ride, but enjoys toon town the most. Steve and Bruce go on the Space Mountain ride more than strictly necessary but they spend the most time in Adventure Land, alternating between the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the Haunted Mansion.

By the end of their two day visit to the happiest place in the world, Natasha has a little book with all the Disney signatures and Clint has sunburn on his shoulders and cheeks and blond highlights through his hair. Tony and Clint have officially bonded over an apparent shared emotional maturity and Steve doesn't look just as haunted anymore. After Disneyland, they trek through to San Francisco and play tourists, Clint and Bruce break off to go to San Diego to visit Sea World while Natasha and Pepper go to L.A for shopping and Steve and Tony do _something_ that is better left never talked about.

At the end of a week, they all meet up at Tony's Malibu beach house to finally start relaxing. Tony's had the whole place renovated, taken out certain aspects of the house, gotten rid of the piano and strangely enough the bar as well. There's a larger balcony, a better spot for Iron Man to vacate the work shop and no more holes in the building.

Pepper offers Natasha her own room, but she says she'll share with Clint if he wants, and it turns out that yes, Clint would prefer that. Natasha knows that things aren't magically fixed, Clint's pushing as much as he can to the back of his mind, putting it away to deal with later, so Natasha will be there whenever he needs her to be, just like he was when she needed him to be.

Thor appears at the start of their second week in California and Tony and Clint start to show him how to play video games. Natasha alternates between sunbathing on the roof with Pepper and going sightseeing with Clint when he's not playing juvenile adolescent games.

"Is it weird that Tony can beat me at sniper games? I mean, I do that shit for real, but he can beat me with a game."

"Something to remember, while you're out doing it for real, he's likely been bored and learning how to do it like that." Natasha just pats Clint's head, "He's the tech nerd, remember." They're the only two in the kitchen. Tony is in the workshop, tinkering with something while Bruce is enjoying some quiet time somewhere with a book and Pepper had some work to do with the California branch of Stark Industries, from what Natasha can guess, Steve accompanied her wherever she was going.

"Steve tried to have a feelings talk with me." For the most part, the group was fairly protective; Natasha had noticed it most from Pepper and Bruce really. They didn't treat her like a child, but they were definitely acting like buffers between the rest of the world and the two assassins. Steve, it seemed, was more inclined to direct his protectiveness towards Clint. "It was moderately awkward really, and I think that was more for him than me." Clint managed a short bark of a laugh, but Natasha recognized it for what it truly was.

Clint was starting to process things.

"What did you talk about?" Even if he was starting to bring it up, starting to look to Natasha to pry it out, she knew better than to just go in for things heavy handed. Clint was still very guarded about his feelings, especially when it came to loss and death.

"The stuff on the carrier," Natasha wasn't surprised that the subject was being repeated, she trusted that Steve would just reiterate the message she'd already conveyed, that no one blamed Clint and there was nothing more he could've done. He didn't kill and everyone knew he could've easily made every shot a headshot. "The stuff with Phil."

"Phil went after Loki himself, you didn't do that."

"I made it so that Loki could escape though, I took everything I knew and I gave it to him." Clint shrugs one shoulder, and Natasha knows better than most that mind control isn't that easy to rationalize, not from the other side. There's too much awareness, too much watching through your own eyes, too much to doubt about everything.

"You didn't give him everything. He didn't know my interrogation technique. He thought I'd be sent in to soothe, to be the cooling balm after the jagged blade. He never once thought that I would be the blade."

"You'd never be a jagged blade, Nat," there was a ghost of a smile on Clint's face, a smaller version of his usual smile; "you're way too smooth for that." It wasn't everything in one step, but it was a small win, and Natasha took the small wins where she could.

*

"You think he'd be disappointed?" Clint perches on the balcony of the mansion, one flip-flop dangling from his foot, bright board shorts and tank top something that Pepper whipped out of nowhere. But then, Natasha's own bikini and sarong weren't part of her wardrobe either.

There's a whole host of people around, not a crazy party like Tony's so prone to having, but actual friends of Tony's and some people Bruce and Pepper know. They were finally introduced to Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, although Natasha was never letting Darcy and Clint out of her sight if they ever made friends properly. Dr Banner had a few colleagues in his field that didn't think he was a total nut job and had lost his mind enough to actually stay in contact with him. The Fantastic Four had even come out for the low key beach party.

Natasha and Clint had slipped away when Carol Danvers, Jessica Drew and Luke Cage had shown up, because they weren't interested in having to watch everything they said around the SHIELD agents. Pepper had just nodded them on.

"Look at them," they volleyball net had been broken out, Steve, Tony and Pepper mopping the sand with Johnny Storm, Luke Cage and Jessica Drew while Carol shouted out strategy tips and Bruce explained the game to Thor. "Do you really think, after all Phil did for this to happen, he'd be at all disappointed?" Phil had been with Fury since the inception of the Avengers Initiative. Phil had been a key aspect in picking the potential members too.

"He wanted to see it though," Clint shrugged one mildly sunburnt shoulder, sighing slightly, "they would've made Phil their handler you know. Fury didn't say anything, but I heard him and Maria talking about the liaison position."

"There would be no one else able to keep them in line." They both managed a small smile at that, understanding that this was Phil's big idea, just the same as it was Nick Fury's. A team of superheroes to defend the world when no one else could. "They'd put us on it, eventually."

"You maybe, me I'm..."

"You're the best marksman in the world, and you're only sixteen," Natasha bumped her shoulder against his gently, making sure she didn't irritate his burn. "Besides, you think I'm going anywhere without you? Not likely, little hawk." They were in it until the end, the two of them. Natasha wasn't losing him if she had anything to say about it.

"That's very good to know." At the voice, Natasha's blood ran cold and her reflexes kicked in. Whirling around to face the origin of it, she stared dumbly until she heard the scuffle beside her and then Clint's presence was gone.

"Clint!" She twisted around, leaning over the side of the balcony and calling his name again, her noise drawing attention from the beach and she could already hear Steve and Tony coming their way. "Clint, for God sake are you okay?"

"I um..." He was conscious, so that was a start. The balcony on Tony's house wasn't exactly massive, and Clint had thrown himself from worse when they were younger, but as another presence settled beside Natasha's shoulder she figured maybe he had good reason to flub this landing. "I think I sprained my ankle, actually. And um, possibly just...No, no, just a scrape. Um, Nat, did I..."

"Yeah, yeah you saw it..." She wasn't looking at Clint anymore, not as she heard Steve and Tony reach him down stairs and presumably help him inside. She was too busy staring at the concerned face beside her.

_Phil's_  concerned face.

"That could've gone better." He was pale, pale like Clint had been when they first moved out to Malibu to relax and hide, and the lines under his eyes were just as much stress and worry as they were not sleeping. And Natasha was privy to the sort of pinched expression Phil got when in pain, and that seemed almost permanent right then.

"I think we should go inside." She made sure to keep her voice cold and steady, until they found out what was going on, because she wasn't about to let something slip by and Natasha knew who she used to work for, they wouldn't be above sending a clone or replica in to snatch her back.

Getting inside took a little bit of doing, Phil moved slightly slower, held himself more careful and Natasha reasoned that if it were really Phil, he had reason for that. A scepter through the back would hamper a mans mobility, for sure. Steve and Tony were tending to Clint's foot in the sitting room, which meant slowly making their way downstairs, with Phil leaning heavily on the banister. Natasha took pity on him at the foot of the stairs and let him use her shoulder to limp into the room and sit on the sofa.

Which was when Tony and Steve noticed them.

"Catch him." Steve's reflexes were what stopped Clint falling off the top of the juice bar, what had once been Tony's wet bar turned child and wholesome super solider friendly. Clint rocked a little, Steve's hand on his shoulder steadying him while they all just stared at Phil; Steve with surprise, Clint with full blown shock mixed with grief mixed with hope mixed with so much more that Natasha really hoped didn't break him.

"Holy hell," Tony seemed to adapt to it fastest, "JARVIS, page Pepper, get her to bring up Bruce and Thor would you, then lock the mansion, no one else in." It was going to feel like an interrogation, Natasha could sense, but right then, maybe that was what they needed.

"Tony, what's--" Pepper came up with Thor and Bruce trailing behind her, the smiles on their faces sliding away when they saw Phil. "Oh my-- How?" Tony shrugged slightly at her, catching Pepper's hand as she waved it between Phil and the rest of them and her mouth, clearly shocked.

"Son of Coul, you are well!" At Thor's comment, Phil snorted a little.

"Not exactly," he shifted a little on the sofa, eyes moving over each of them before he sighed softly, "extensive lung damage, muscle scarring, medically induced coma. The doctors at SHIELD did their best, but I'm still a little like Humpty Dumpty right now." Clint was the one who reached back behind the bar, grabbing a bottle of water and pushing it to Steve. As the appointed leader, Steve was given the hard jobs, although he really didn't seem too fussed. Phil took the water gratefully, offering what appeared to be a stiff, strained smile to Clint in thanks, but Clint ducked his head, looking away.

"We were told you were dead." Natasha didn't bother to try not to sound accusing. She was warring with herself over this whole thing. They'd believed him dead, they'd _mourned_ , they were still mourning. "Fury never once even hinted that it was possible you'd survive."

"It was a bad strategy. We'd thought at first... It was my call, I thought I was dead. They needed to push and it..." Phil shook his head, likely the whole situation weighing just as heavy on him as it was everyone else. "You were meant to be told, after the battle, if we won. Fury was supposed to tell you and Clint first." Maybe that was why Fury had pushed so hard, why he'd wanted to bring them in so much. Natasha had been struggling with the idea that Nick Fury, a man who signed Christmas presents for her and Clint as 'Uncle Nick' would really want Clint pushed through the CARE process so quickly. "But apparently you were hard to pin down."

"CARE were there for Clint, before Fury arrived."

"Ah," Phil just nodded, "so you stole them away to Malibu?" Phil directed it towards Steve, but Steve shrugged and pointed his finger to Tony, clearly not taking the blame for that.

"Hey, c'mon! They needed a vacation; do you not see how pale those two were?" Tony just holds his hands up in defeat. "Try to do a good thing."

"Clint burns easily, and Natasha is naturally fair." Phil recites it like Gospel, something he would know inside and out from all those New York summers where Clint had to be covered in sunscreen and Natasha avoided too much light.

"I'm not happy we were lied to," Pepper says it softly, moving away from Tony's side, although Natasha catches the quick hand squeeze she gives him, and crosses over to the sofa, "but I'm glad you're alright, Phil." There's a blush on Phil's cheeks at Pepper's soft kiss, although he nods slowly and just accepts it.

"I too am glad you are well, Son of Coul. A great warrior you are, the Spider and Hawk feel deeply for you, I was troubled by their loss." The booming sound of Thor's voice almost outweighs the heaviness of his words, but as everyone flinches just a little from the volume, Natasha and Clint both blush at Thor's admission.

"Thor, buddy, inside voice." Tony makes a point of wiggling his finger in his ear, possibly in jest, but he was closer to Thor than most of the others. It was enough to break some of the tension, which Tony seemed apt at doing.

"I need some air." Clint shuffled to the end of the bar, dropping off with a slight wince and Tony moved before Natasha could to help Clint outside, JARVIS opening the door for them without needing to be asked. Phil just rubbed a hand over his face while Pepper sat down beside him.

"He took it hardest," Natasha knew that Phil didn't need to be told this, but even if they were all glad he wasn't as dead as Fury let them believe, Clint was going to need time. "He's just starting to accept it and then you come back, it's messed a lot up inside. He just needs a little time." They both knew, better than most, just how hard Clint took things, just how attached he got. It wasn't a weakness, but it did have draw backs.

"I know, I'm sorry, but at the time..." Natasha just nodded, letting a small smile grace her features as she moved across the room to join Pepper.

"At the time you thought you were dying. We all do stupid stuff when we think we're dying." Natasha mimicked Pepper, placing her own kiss against Phil's cheek, glad to feel the warmth of skin beneath her lips, "Don't do it again, otets." She knew from the seriousness on his face, as he nodded his head and calmly gave her hand a squeeze, he understood just how deeply she cared for him without her having to say more.

*

With the revelation of Phil's demise being exaggerated, Natasha doesn't feel any qualms about breaking into the SHIELD archives via JARVIS. She knew that Tony left a back door into the system and had JARVIS doing sweeps, she'd be surprised if he hadn't, because Tony was just that side of paranoid and nosy that it made him cautious about the information others dealt in. Especially people who knew about the arc reactor.

It took her less than five minutes to access the files stored regarding the Avengers Initiative, somewhat updated since she'd last had a brief on the files, when she was asked to assess Stark. Captain America was slated to lead the merry band of misfits, Iron Man as his second with Hulk and Thor assigned to membership status. Natasha was glad for that, not only because Thor was clearly forging a new family there, but because Bruce deserved the trust being offered since he helped save New York.

Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew were still pending evaluation, although Natasha knew from SHIELD myths and stories that Carol Danvers was possibly one level under Captain America by way of hero status among SHIELD. There were small notations; like potential X-Men candidates, Daredevil being asked aboard, Blade and even a very small, possible lapse in judgment on Fury's part about Deadpool. Natasha almost pushed the laptop away from her in fear at that point.

"What're you doing now?" Clint was the only person who could really sneak up on Natasha, so she didn't bother snapping the laptop shut and lying.

"Making sure SHIELD aren't being idiots again." Natasha trusted SHIELD to know how to use her, to understand her abilities and point her towards the right target. She trusted them to treat her like a human being and not just a weapon, to remember that she bled for them and treat her accordingly. She didn't trust them to make the right decisions without personal issues clouding judgment. The fact that Tony almost died to stop the nuclear warhead from destroying New York and countless lives just highlighted that.

"Why are you hacking into SHIELD? Seriously, Natasha, Fury'll get sick of this shit eventually."

"I know, that's why I'm using Tony's system." She knew that Clint was just as curious as she was, but that would come later, because right then it seemed he had more important things to ponder over. "Have you talked to Phil yet?" Clint had done impressive work, avoiding Coulson and anywhere that he might be at any given time for the past three days. It meant Clint was spending a lot of time in Tony's workshop, which meant Tony was spending a lot of time with Clint and Clint was starting to learn about taking cars apart just for the sake of doing it.

"No." Apparently Clint was also learning how to be overly melodramatic about the whole thing as well. Natasha understood time to process. Clint felt things very rawly, so the belief that Phil had been dead, and nursing that belief for two weeks, would take more than just three days to get over, but Natasha was also aware that Phil was as good as a father to Clint, to both of them, and the fact that Clint was delaying getting his head around things was just going to damage him more.

"Don't you think you should?" It wasn't just detrimental to Clint to prolong this; it was bad for Phil too. Yes, he'd made a dumb call, and Fury could've tried harder to tell them two weeks ago, but things happened and they just had to work with them. It wasn't the first time one of them had thought one of the others were dead, it just happened to be the longest time they'd put up with the belief.

"And say what? Sorry I almost got you killed; you want a refill of water?"

"He's more likely to smack you upside the head if you say that." She felt a small accomplishment at Clint soft laugh, because they both knew that Phil wouldn't blame any of this on Clint, it was just Clint who had to let go of that guilt. "Just talk to him, Clint, you've never had trouble there before."

"I just..."

"Stop, okay," spinning in her seat to face him, Natasha just shook her head, "forget everything that's in your head and just remember. It's Phil. The guy we both wanna call Dad but never do, the guy that made us teenage mutant ninja turtle costumes for Halloween even though he was appalled at our choices. He's seen us sick, he's seen us injured, he's seen us scared. Just stop with whatever messed up thoughts you've got going on in there and go tell him you're glad he's not really dead."

Forcing Clint to do the things he doesn't want to do doesn't always work out. If it's pushed and pushed and he  _really_  doesn't want to do it, like his first Freshman dance at school when he _really_  didn't want to do it and the school was subject to six fire alarms in the span of half an hour before they just called the whole thing off, well, that's just one example of Clint's stubbornness manifesting into actual subordinate behavior. Although he had argued that teenagers were supposed to be surly and subordinate, he had it on good authority from his classmates.

But this is something Natasha feels certain he needs to be pushed into, something that she has no compunction against doing. She doesn't content herself with her search until she knows that Clint is sitting with Phil, out on the balcony where Pepper has set Phil up with a Stark tablet and enough to keep him busy while he still rests. They'll talk things through, they'll get somewhere and Natasha can go back to making sure the Avengers aren't thwarted by SHIELD's own ineptitude.

Namor on a team with Tony Stark? Are they looking for a battle of the egos? She had nothing against the Iron Fist personally, but she doubted he'd do well on the team. Spiderman was a different thing; he'd probably do better if he was included. Natasha was more than happy to make a few edits and burn a few SHIELD bridges if it meant the Avengers were taken care of properly.

*


End file.
